


break the truth inside of me

by dustofwarfare, ohmyfae



Series: Imperative [5]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, alternate universe - d/s verse, golden route through piracy, multishipper paradise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 79,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: The Areadbhar sinks off the coast of Faerghus on a cold spring morning, just as clouds of mist roll off the cliffs and spill into a quieting sea. Smoke drifts, dark and acrid with the scent of gunpowder and smoldering wood, and the crack of the Arianrhod’s mizzenmast collapsing rings out like a gunshot over the water.Three of the most infamous pirates in Fodlan are on the hunt for a mysterious relic that can supposedly bring the dead back to life.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Mercedes von Martritz, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Dedue Molinaro, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc, Balthazar von Adalbrecht | Balthus von Albrecht/Lysithea von Ordelia, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Claude von Riegan, Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Petra Macneary, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Claude von Riegan, Hilda Valentine Goneril/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Jeritza von Hrym/My Unit | Byleth, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/Claude von Riegan
Series: Imperative [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654516
Comments: 97
Kudos: 139
Collections: DS-Verse FE3H Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate-universe Pirates!AU AND it's a ds-verse AU. That means it's set in a world where everyone is either biologically a dominant or submissive, please take care if you are sensitive to that kind of content. This is fantasy with kink, cursed sailors, ghost ships, treasure hunting, and hammock sex. And some violence, because pirates. 
> 
> Title from "Flesh and Bone" by Black Math.

The Areadbhar sinks off the coast of Faerghus on a cold spring morning, just as clouds of mist roll off the cliffs and spill into a quieting sea. Smoke drifts, dark and acrid with the scent of gunpowder and smoldering wood, and the crack of the Areadbhar’s mizzenmast collapsing rings out like a gunshot over the water. 

Edelgard von Hresvelg lowers her spyglass and sighs. The kingdom of Faerghus’ greatest man-o’-war, commanded by the most cold-hearted pirate chaser in recent history, taken out in the fog like a merchant vessel with a few spare muskets and a rusted cannon. Her own ship is not unscathed—her crew rushes about her, feet thumping on the boards, silent save for a few whispered commands and the pumping of the bellows—but the fire that licks across the Areadbhars deck burns hot in her own throat, and she turns from it, flipping her long white hair over her shoulder.

“Well done, Lady Edelgard.” Hubert von Vestra, who holds no official title on her ship nor listing in the records she sends back home, appears like a shadow at her shoulder. He wears a black collar—The sign of a submissive in service to the imperial family—but there is no crest or mark to declare who he answers to. Everyone already knows, in any case. “I took the liberty of pulling down the flag.”

Edelgard glances at the semaphore line, which a young sailor is already refitting with imperial colors. “Yes. Thank you, Hubert.”

“Petra returned with a survivor,” Hubert says. Edelgard whirls to face him, and he steps back with a bow as she descends to the middle deck, her boots clicking on wood that had been scrubbed to a polish before the soot and debris of battle masked its shine. Petra stands on a rowboat still being hauled up the side of the ship, one hand on the ropes to steady herself. A pile of royal blue cotton and gleaming leather slumps at her feet.

Edelgard’s breath catches in her throat.

“Captain!” Petra jumps onto the deck, and one of the sailors keeping the rowboat steady curses darkly. “I brought you a man.”

“Kind of you,” Edelgard says, and Petra grins. “But just one?”

“You are… insatiable,” Petra says. “All these beautiful women, and you ask for men. This one won’t be any good. Cried like a child when I found him.”

“Did he.” Edelgard watches her sailors drag the man out of the boat, and tenses at the sight of a disheveled mop of red hair. “There were no others?”

“Sinking ships suck in the water,” Petra says, as though Edelgard doesn’t know, as though she hasn’t seen men keelhauled under the hull of a ship, as though she hadn’t fought the current of a sinking imperial merchant vessel, wept herself dry on the first pirate galley to sift through the wreckage. “But I looked, Captain. There was a boat, but they shot at me, so one man you have. He is a lot of man,” she adds, nodding to the pale, ashen fellow being dragged belowdecks.

 _But not the right one,_ Edelgard doesn’t say. She turns from him, this unwelcome stranger on her ship, and peers into the mist that even now obscures the remains of Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd’s man-o’-war. Perhaps he is on the lifeboat Petra couldn’t approach, rowing towards the pebbled shore. Perhaps he isn’t. Perhaps he’s with his ship, broken at last, the dreadful boom and crack of his voice silenced by the sea.

Edelgard turns from the mist and follows her newest prisoner into the belly of her ship, her blood-red uniform disappearing in the fog and smoke, a specter returning to the dark.

***

Dedue Molinaro, chief mate on the Areadbhar, scans the waters as the last of his crew rows their way to shore.

It should have been impossible. No pirate ship can take out a vessel built for war, but the ship that emerged from the mist that morning had been anything but a typical pirate ship. It had an imperial design to the hull, and the sailors on deck were organized, trained, nothing like the usual sailors who flew the black. And when Dimitri had seen the figure in red at the helm, he’d lost what control he had left, threw himself into battle as though he were facing down the gods themselves.

And now he’s gone.

Not dead, Dedue thinks, as he stares up at the shadow of the pirate ship disappearing in the mist. Gone.

He would know if Dimitri were dead. He would feel it in his bones, in the core of him, where Dimitri worked his way in some years ago as a scrawny, lanky young officer with an anxious smile and rage behind his eyes. And Dedue doesn’t feel empty, yet.

“We’ll find him,” he says. At his side, Ashe Ubert, one of their surviving gunners, wipes blood from the side of his cheek.

“Yes, sir,” he says. “Dimitri and. And Felix, and the others, they don’t give up so easy.”

Dedue looks down at Ashe, whose hands are shaking slightly on his oar. He never paid much attention to him on the ship—The gunners aren’t his to command—but he looks pale under his freckles, and he stares down at his hands, the white knuckles straining. A submissive, possibly, or just a poor man rattled by shock. Dedue looks away from his trembling hands and back over the still water that has taken their ship.

“Pull yourself together,” he says. “We have a long road ahead.”

“Yes, sir,” Ashe whispers.

They row into the mist, leaving the dark shadow of the imperial pirate vessel behind, and Dedue can hear the first notes of a bellows song rolling over the water, low and insistent as the beat of an ancient heart, coming up through the sea.

***

Dimitri isn’t dead.

He should be. He took a shot in the shoulder, he thinks, from the _Flame Emperor_ herself, that damned creature with her moon-white hair and red uniform, holding a gold-plated gun with both hands. He can still feel the force of impact—Felix’s face above him—the way his eyes went blank as something struck him from behind.

Then the sea. Cold and dark and welcoming, filled with the voices of the dead.

He’s failed them. Four years of service, dedicated to avenging the deaths of his father, his friend, their ship long lost in the heart of the ocean, and now Dimitri is lost himself, drifting on the tide.

Warm hands grasp at the collar of his uniform.

“Easy,” someone says, far above him. He’s still drowning, he thinks, still trapped, but the voice that speaks now is louder than the commands of the ghosts that wind through the current. “He won’t make it if we leave him as he is.”

“And the other one?” A low voice. Mournful. Slow.

“He’ll be fine. This one’s trouble.”

He knows this voice. He must. But Dimitri is still drifting, and when he opens his eye, all he sees is whiteness before a hand reaches down to cover his vision, and the world goes dark.

The dead return to him. Demanding. Howling. Broken and furious, dragging him down into the depths even as his shoulder throbs like a second heartbeat and wood scrapes under his boots. 

“Lower them again,” the first voice says, nearly swallowed by the unquiet spirits. “They’ll be found soon enough.”

 _Too late,_ Dimitri tries to say, but his voice is lost, lost with his ship, with his purpose, lost to the sound of voices in the dark, the creak of a vessel that isn’t his, the low, distant whistle of wind over the waves.

***

“You know, you’ve had some stupid ideas, Captain,” says Hilda, Claude’s first mate and most opinionated person on board the Golden Deer, possibly on the entirety of the high seas themselves. “But this one? This one might be the dumbest.” She puts her hands on her hips, tilts her head and gives him a thoroughly unimpressed look from beneath the brim of her hat. “He’s, like. A _menace_. People think he’s half-demon. You know that, right?” 

“I know that.” Claude leans into the rocking motion of the ship, naturally, like he’s done every day of his life since he first learned how to walk. “But what was I supposed to do? They would have died. Marianne said she’s almost sure they were on that dinghy for nearly two full days. One more without water and that would have been it.” 

Hilda tilts her face up to the sky, where dark, ominous storm clouds have been gathering since midday. “Put them back out there with a canteen. What? It’s going to rain!” 

Claude sighs. He’s heard the whispers among his crew, as they changed the flag to fly the colors of the Golden Deer of the Alliance navy. When they’d come across the dinghy with the two men barely clinging to life, they were flying a different flag, the ship slicing silent through the dark choppy waters, the thick fog. 

_Storm-cursed,_ he’d heard whispered as they dragged the men in. _Even the sea doesn’t want the demon-hearted Faerghan prince._

Some years ago, when Claude was a fresh-faced cadet at the officer’s academy in Garreg Mach, he’d known the demon-hearted Faerghan prince by his given name -- Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, with a false smile and a polite tone and no hint of the disaster at sea that took his family anywhere in his bearing. Claude mistrusted anyone on whom tragedy left so little a mark. It was there somewhere, rooted deep inside like a poison. 

The other man they’d pulled from the wreckage had been there, too. Duke Felix Fraldarius, meant for the sea before his naval strings were cut as all second sons of Fraldarius were. But then he’d lost his brother in the same accident that took Dimitri’s father the king, and a duke he became. Claude has little memory of him from school; a sharp amber gaze, obsessively training with a sword, unfriendly. The only time Claude had ever seen him smile was one miserable winter day when snow fell soft and wet across the campus of the officer’s academy, and it seemed to Claude as if he were staring away, maybe back toward home where the wind blew in cold off the sea. 

Both of them are here now, for some reason, and Claude wants to know why. Blaiddyd is unconscious in Claude’s quarters, and Fraldarius is with Marianne, the ship’s doctor, in the sick bay. Both have injuries from an obvious battle, which must be the reason they were adrift in open water instead of hunting down pirates in Dimitri’s warship. 

Claude smiles at the thought and glances over at Hilda. “I know what you think. Make them walk the plank, right?” 

“We don’t even have to do that,” Hilda says, hands on her hips. “Just toss them. Raphael can do it. _I_ could probably manage Fraldarius.” The wind tries to pick up her hat, but Hilda, ever contrary even with the weather, smashes it harder on her head to keep it there. The ends of her pink hair whip around her like a cutesy, sugary fury. 

Claude’s seen her in the midst of battle-frenzy. There’s nothing cute or sugary about it. “Just let me see what’s up, okay? I keep thinking. Someone wanted me to find them.” Claude walks over and puts his hands on the smooth wood of the ship’s rail, watching as they cut ghost-quiet through the waves. It is going to storm, and soon. There’s something electric in the air, in his bones, that makes Claude think it’s going to be a doozy. 

“Probably why you should have left them there,” says Hilda, a touch of her natural dominance in her voice. 

Claude just shrugs it off and turns to go. “I know, I know. I’m reckless and you hate me, I got it.” He sweeps her a rakish bow, more Khalid than Claude. “Ask Ignatz if he’s found that cove on his maps, yet. I have a feeling we’re going to need to shelter in a day or two.” 

“Because you dragged the most notorious pirate hunter in Fodlan and his second mate on our ship?” 

“Nah,” says Claude, with that same hellbent grin. “Because they say when pirate-hunters ships sink, the ghosts of the pirates hanged for their crimes rise up to drag their spirits down to Cethleann’s Locket, trapped forever behind sea glass, and the ghosts turn into a storm to let the other restless dead know their tormenters are forever contained in the ocean’s cold heart.” 

Hilda stares him straight in the eyes, then yawns. 

Claude laughs. “I thought you liked my stories!” 

“I do, but not when I just asked a _question_ ,” Hilda huffs. Then, with a sigh, she says, “I’ll ask Ignatz. But you should know this isn’t a popular decision. And Alliance vessels might follow proper military hierarchy, and you’re a crown prince on the White Wyvern, but remember...Captain...pirates _vote_.” 

With that, Hilda makes her way down to find the ship’s cartographer, Ignatz, and Claude sees a few of the ships cats scurrying after her. They know it’s going to storm, of course. Cats always do. 

He goes down to the sick bay first, where Marianne is tending to Felix. Felix is shivering, not quite unconscious but nearly, shivering with fever but his shoulder wound has been expertly cleaned and bandaged. 

“He’s all right,” Marianne says, before Claude even has to ask. She smiles and places a hand on Felix’s forehead. “Delirious, but the fever is natural, not too high. I’ll keep an eye on him, of course.” 

Claude nods. Felix has been stripped of his sodden, salt-crusted clothes and given a pair of linen pants that look like they might belong to Ignatz or possibly Leonie. His dark hair is tangle-free and his face is flushed. He shivers as Claude stares down at him, his legs twitching, restless in the midst of his fever. 

“You’re making sure he has water?” Claude asks, though it’s a silly thing to ask a healer. But he needs to know what happened, and from what he’s heard, Blaiddyd’s not been much use for anything but high-seas combat lately. Until now, anyway. 

“Of course, Captain,” Marianne says, serenely. She gets to her feet. “The -- other, um.” It’s clear she doesn’t know what word to use. “...other one. He’s in your quarters, as you requested. He, ah. Resisted my attempts to heal, but he did accept water. You should think about, maybe not. Not going in there.” 

“Nah, it’s fine. Thanks, Marianne.” He smiles and says, “Make sure you get some supper in you, and batten down the lanterns. We’re in for a storm, probably.” 

“Yes,” she says, glancing over at two of the cats. They love her, the ship cats. “I know.” 

“Okay, then.” Claude glances again at Felix, whose head tosses on the makeshift bed. “Come get me if he wakes up or takes a turn for the worse. I’m trying to get Ignatz to find us safe harbor, but we may have to ride this out and it could get dicey.” 

She nods, and Claude turns to go. 

“He’s -- not pleasant, Captain,” she says, from behind him. “They’re not wrong what they say about him, that he’s some kind of demon. But I think it’s just like, like this one. Something inside of him that needs to burn out.” 

Claude thinks about this as he makes his way to his quarters. They’re ridiculous, and he loves them; he has every absurd trapping of a pirate king, an alliance military officer _and_ a crown prince in here. A giant globe, gold goblets, a long dark-wood table with antique maps. It’s amazing and overdone and that’s not even counting the man chained in the corner, with his back pressed to the wall. 

Unlike Felix, Dimitri Blaiddyd is not stripped out of his clothes; they cling to him, a ruined mess of salt and sun. He’s got a thick metal collar around his neck and chains on his wrists and ankles, and when he lifts his head, there’s a snarl where a face should be, hair hanging limp and dirty in what is still, somehow, a striking face. 

All of Claude’s dominant senses go off, but that’s -- that can’t be right, can it? Dimitri Blaiddyd is the most feared military commander and pirate-hunter in the known world. He can’t be a _submissive_ , that’s impossible. 

“Where am I,” the thing in the corner growls, rattling chains like one of those ghosts his father used to tell him about, back when Claude was small and clinging to his neck, afraid, as his ship was tossed about by summer storms. When Claude doesn’t respond, the chains rattle and _pull_ , and the growl turns into a bellow. “ _Where am I_?” 

There’s rage there, plenty of it. Fear, undercutting it. Pain. But it’s lacking in dominance, though maybe only another a prince would notice. But Claude is a prince, and he notices. “You’re on my ship. And you’re going to need to be quiet, if you want me to answer any of your questions. All right?” 

Dimitri is not quiet. Dimitri shouts, something wordless, angry, and rattles his chains so hard Claude thinks for one horrifying moment they’re going to break and Blaiddyd is going to kill him, proving Hilda right, which is equally horrifying. 

Outside, Claude hears the faintest rumble of thunder. If there are ghosts of long-dead pirates sent to their graves by this man, they’re going to be impatient. And that means they’re going to be in for quite a storm. 

***

The skies open just as Dimitri begins to lose his voice, spitting rain onto the deck above the cabin where he’s been chained like a beast to be culled. Dimitri wrenches against the chains at his wrists even as the ship pitches to the side and the golden cups on the shelves above him rattle. The table at the end of the cabin is bolted down, but the chair skids to the side before Dimitri’s captor catches it with his foot.

He makes a dashing figure, this pirate, with his dark hair and hint of a beard trailing down his jaw, muscular arms just showing through his rolled-up sleeves. His jacket sways with the ship on a hook behind him, and a green and gold scarf winds around his neck, loose and careless.

 _It would be easy,_ his father’s quartermaster says, in her warm, quiet voice, _to wrap that scarf around his neck._

“You’re a pirate,” Dimitri rasps. Thunder rolls, and his chains tremble.

“Am I?” The pirate places both hands on the table, resting just on his fingertips. He sways when the ship pitches again, but only Dimitri falls to the side, the collar tugging at his neck. “Do you want me to be one? I could be, but that means changing the flags again and replacing the figurehead, and you might have noticed that we aren’t in a good place for that, right now.”

 _A good son would have done it,_ his father says. _Kill him and be done with him._

Dimitri’s chest constricts. His father is the worst of his ghosts, the one he can’t dare to disobey, but the chains that hold him to the wall are too sturdy to break, and even when Dimitri roars with the effort, he’s left panting and hunched, hair hanging in his face.

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“What’s that?”

 _You can’t?_ No. No, it’s Glenn, this time, Felix’s brother, who’d gone down with a musket ball in his chest just as he was helping Dimitri into the rowboat. He can still see him as he slipped over the side, still feel the cold, clammy touch of his skin as he dragged him into the boat. He’d held him there for hours, watching as his father’s ship went down, and had finally pushed him overboard when the rot of his death became too much to bear. 

“I. I’m trying, I tried to,” Dimitri says. His cheeks burn—His heart aches like it’s being squeezed by an unseen fist. “She was too… that _bitch_ shot me in the _shoulder—_ ”

“Who are you talking to?” The pirate— _Edelgard_ —No, someone else, someone with dark brows and sea-green eyes. “Who shot you?”

 _He knows,_ someone says, but then Dimitri’s shoulder pulses with pain, and the voices stutter, recede, build again like the crash of waves in a storm. 

“Maybe I should introduce mys—“ 

“I don’t _care_ who you are,” Dimitri snarls.

“Claude,” the man says. “Claude von Riegan. And you’re Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd—Or you should be.” He steps closer, and Dimitri jerks against his bonds. “Is it true, what they say about you? That you’re a demon? That you’re possessed? Or is it something else, like a sickness? Because we have people for that, back home.”

 _You made a vow,_ his father says. His voice shifts, growing darker, more melodious, and Dimitri feels a tremor roll through him at the sound. _Don’t forget us, Dima. You made a vow, and the sea remembers._

Above them, the waves pound on the deck, a great beating of drums.

“Don’t presume,” Dimitri says, at last, breathing hard against the pull of the collar at his neck, “to know me.”

“Excuse me,” Claude says. He pushes away from the table. The cups rattle again, and Dimitri sways on his knees, but Claude walks carefully, sure-footed on the swaying ship.

Dimitri bares his teeth as Claude grabs a fistful of his unkempt hair and pulls his head back, forcing Dimitri to meet his gaze. Dimitri can’t help it—He instinctively looks away, and the combination of Claude’s hand in his hair and the voices roaring in the storm is slowly dragging him under.

Claude doesn’t smile, but there’s a hint of satisfaction in his tone as he tugs at Dimitri’s hair. “So you _are_ a submissive.”

“Not yours,” Dimitri says.

 _No,_ echoes the voice that was his father’s. _Not yours._

Claude is silent for a moment. “There’s a story about survivors at sea,” he says. “They call them—“ He says something in a language Dimitri doesn’t understand. “The Eaten. The sea takes a piece of them and spits them out, and they can never set foot on land again. They’re ghosts, servants of the sea. Slaves to its will.”

 _It’s our will,_ Glenn says. _And you gave yourself to us. You swore. You swore you would avenge us, you threw my body into the sea and you swore—_

Dimitri doesn’t know that he’s crying out until the sound of his voice is already dying in the cabin. Claude shakes him by the hair and slaps him hard, and Dimitri glowers at him darkly before he looks away. Still, for once, he’s almost glad of the distraction.

He doesn’t want to hear it. Not now.

“Where does it come from?” Claude asks. “The sea?” He makes Dimitri look at him again, releases him with a jerk that has him collapsing in his chains. “Then you’ll have to switch allegiances, because _I’m_ in command on this ship.” His voice lowers, heavy with dominance, and he places a foot on the back of Dimitri’s injured shoulder to keep him down. “Do you understand me?”

Dimitri bucks him off with a shout, and Claude sighs. He steps away, swings open the door, and Dimitri can taste the salt air, the cool, crisp rain on the deck. “Right. Waves aren’t that bad.” He comes back down and steps around Dimitri, towards the hooks that hold his chains in place.

Dimitri strains against them, and Claude barks out, in a voice so thick with dominance that even the ghosts of the sea fade to a murmur. “You will _stay_ on your _knees._ ”

Dimitri growls low in his throat, but when the chains slither free of the wall and Claude wraps them around his own arms, Dimitri doesn’t turn to use them to wring his neck. He just kneels there, panting heavily, his whole body threatening to shake apart with the weight of his failure. Claude yanks at the chains, and when he’s dragged up to his feet, he does struggle, pulling back from Claude’s iron grip.

“You’re getting this out of your system,” Claude says. “You and me and the ocean, we’re going to have some quality time together while I help us through this storm. Then maybe we can have an actual conversation.”

And with that, Claude drags Dimitri out of the warm, ostentatious cabin and into the storm, where the sea and her ghosts wait for him.

***

There’s a storm churning the sea into a froth on the horizon, an ominous warning of things to come, but the imperial warship sometimes known as the Black Eagle skirts the edge of it, cutting through the choppy waters under a dark sky. A voice rises on the wind, cultured and perfect, nothing like the rhythmic chants that roll over the water in the morning or the bellow of voices in the rigging. It’s a song that doesn’t belong on the sea. It flows through Edelgard as she leans on the railing of the main deck, a siren song, too beautiful for the captain of a ship like the Eagle.

Perhaps it could have belonged to the Aymr. The name is still there, somewhere, hidden under new plating Edelgard ordered to be hammered into the hull. The Amyr would have been a fine vessel for a songstress. For a princess.

Edelgard rolls her shoulders. The silk of her dressing gown slides over old battle scars, pale in the moonlight, and her long hair is twisted in a braid that winds like a crown over her brow. She nods to a sailor passing by to announce a change of the watch, and descends into the belly of the ship, where her healer is passed out among his books in the sickbay.

As expected.

“Well,” Edelgard says. The only man awake in the small alcove set aside for Linhardt’s mess of an infirmary is the prisoner from Dimitri’s ship. His long legs are bare, bandaged over what looks like the pale scarring of magefire, and his red hair is disheveled and pulled back with gauze. He sits up when he sees Edelgard, and the rope tying him to a hook on the floor tightens.

“Your majesty,” he says. Which isn’t right, exactly. Edelgard isn’t emperor yet, though she may as well be, for all the good the steward in Enbarr is doing.

“Tell me your name,” she says, and he straightens slightly.

“Sylvain. Of house Gautier,” he adds, “which I assure you will pay for my safe return.”

“I never said I planned on returning you,” Edelgard says, and it comes out more snappish than she intends. Sylvain seems to shrink back under her gaze. “And it doesn’t matter what house you belong to, here. You were a sailor on Prince Dimitri’s ship?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sir. Your majesty?”

“Captain will do,” Edelgard says, before he hurts himself. Linhardt mutters in his sleep and rolls over, and she takes a seat in the empty space he’s left behind. “How much do you remember of the battle?”

“I…” Sylvain’s gaze hardens, somewhat. “Enough. I remember enough.”

“And your captain.” Edelgard lays a hand on Linhardt’s shoulder for support, and he grunts softly. “Was he in the lifeboat, with the others? Did he fall with the ship?”

Sylvain is silent for a minute, staring down at his hands.

“I can command you to answer me,” Edelgard says, gently, as though coaxing out a kitten from under a crate. “You know that.”

“I do,” Sylvain says. “Dimitri was. Something… took him, when he saw your ship. I don’t think he—He was shot, I think, I saw Felix run to him, thought. Thought Felix would take his chance, really, run him through. He was… You have to understand, he was reckless, he—“

“Yes,” Edelgard says. “Your ship would have survived if a capable commander were on board. But did you see him fall?”

Sylvain doesn’t even challenge her, which tells her all she needs to know about Dimitri’s state before his ship sank. Her stomach twists as Sylvain examines his hands, the rope twined around his wrists.

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice sounds hollow. “I don’t know if any of them made it.”

Edelgard bites back a curse. Beside her, Linhardt stirs, rubbing an ink-stained hand over his brow. She resists the urge to lick her thumb and rub it clean, sighs, and does it anyways. Linhardt blinks up at her, too used to this treatment to comment, and stretches like a cat.

“Good morning, Captain,” he drawls.

“It’s almost midnight,” Edelgard says. She slaps his leg. “Get up, we need to talk. Sylvain.”

Sylvain jumps slightly. “Yes? Ma’am?”

“Captain,” Edelgard says. “I can’t promise we’ll get you home any time soon, but we’ll drop you off the next time we reach port. And you may be a prisoner here, but I don’t expect you to wallow around down in the dark while the rest of us work. Make yourself useful, and you’ll find life will be easier for you. Understood?”

Sylvain responds instantly to the firm voice of command—She suspects he’d be kneeling if he had the chance. “Yes, Captain.”

“Very good. Linhardt, up.”

Linhardt moans faintly, but he drags himself up regardless, heaving his body behind Edelgard as though he’s dragging a cannon around by his spirit alone. Edelgard rolls her eyes and climbs the ladder to the upper deck.

She can just see the storm sweeping away from them to the south as she walks the deck, a dark patch of shadow against the stars. Linhardt slumps on the rail and ties back his dark green hair with a ribbon she’s fairly sure he lifted from her supplies, and peers up at her with the slow patience of a housecat.

“No way of telling if the bullet worked, Captain,” he says. 

Edelgard snarls. Only Linhardt is unaffected by her temper—While Petra would step back and Ferdinand would bristle, and Hubert would drop to his knees in a heartbeat, Linhardt just stares at her. She wonders, sometimes, if he somehow missed the dominant and submissive genes altogether, or if he’s so uninterested in anything that doesn’t involve ancient sea-borne crest magic that he hasn’t bothered to notice.

“It was a toss-up anyways,” he says, as Edelgard flings herself onto the rail, glowering at the storm. “I’m still not sure if I believe in curses, so maybe the magic didn’t take. Maybe the gunpowder disrupted the spell, and whatever has hold of him still, you know.” He makes faint clawing gestures. “Has him. Or maybe you just killed him, which. Well. He sure wouldn’t be cursed after _that._ ”

Edelgard frowns at her clasped hands. They’d spent weeks working on the spell. Longer still tracking down Dimitri’s ship, luring him into a patch of sea that wouldn’t put them at risk of dashing themselves against the rocks. Then Dimitri—or his ghosts, or pure unfocused rage, or whatever it was that sent rumors her way that sounded so like a proper curse that Edelgard would disrupt her own plans to see to it—went and wrecked his blasted ship anyways.

“And now he may be dead,” she says.

Linhardt turns his face to the storm. A wind tousles his hair, and his ribbon goes sliding free, twisting and curling into the dark ocean. 

“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe whatever cursed him wants him alive.”

***  
It is said that where the Fell Star sails, the water is always dark, the fog is always heavy, and the storms always rage. The ship with no hands to man her sails, with the death’s head figurehead rising from the bow, black corns curved and sinister, eyes that glow red from some mysterious dark fire. 

And sometimes, when the moon is right and the clouds part and the stars shine just so, they say you can see the shadow of a ghost girl floating over the deck. If you can get close enough. If you _want_ to. 

On this night there is no one above deck but the graying wood, no ghost and no moon by which to see her. The only inhabitants rest below, curled up in the soft dark, together while the storm-tossed sea caresses the ship. 

“They’re all right,” Byleth says, fingers curling in the soft wheat-blond hair of his companion. “Someone found them.” 

“Something already found one of them,” Jeritza murmurs, in his drowsy voice. “I know the curse-marked when I see them, beloved.” 

A sigh. “You do. Perhaps it would have been better to bring him here. We know what it is to sail with ghosts.” 

“Then he will find his way back.” Jeritza tumbles him back on the bed, presses a kiss above where Byleth’s heart should be. “If he is meant to sail on the ship of the doomed, he shall. But I would have him far from you, until we know how this is to end.” 

Byleth tugs his head up and kisses him. In his head there’s the softest of laughs, light and airy, a chime dancing in the storm winds. 

_As if you can ever know such a thing,_ she says. _As if you would even want to._


	2. Chapter 2

Felix Fraldarius wakes to a cat on his chest.

The cat blinks at him as he stirs on the hard floor, her yellow eyes slitted as she purrs and flexes her claws on his neck. She’s a tortoiseshell cat—Not the golden tabby Felix is used to seeing below decks on the Areadbhar—and she cries in outrage as he sits up, dislodging her from his chest. She rolls to his lap and stalks off, tail raised high, and Felix winces as his shoulder burns.

“Careful,” a soft voice says.

“Sorry,” Felix says. Then he remembers. The fight. Blood on the deck, the mainmast falling, sailors drowning in the tangle of sails and netting and splintered wood. Dimitri. “Mercedes. Did you—“

He falls silent. The woman leaning over him now is most definitely not Mercedes. Her hair is a light blue, braided out of her shadowed eyes, and while she’s firm enough as she pushes Felix to his back, she doesn’t have any of Mercedes’ quiet dominance or her easy smile.

“I expect you’ll have questions,” she says. “My name is Marianne. You’re on the… Ah. I think we’re the Golden Deer today. Yes. You’re on the Golden Deer.”

“The Alliance ship?” Felix asks. “And how can you not know?”

“But I do,” Marianne says. “No, don’t sit up, your fever only just broke. Drink this, please.”

Felix, like all sailors of the Areadbhar, knows better than to question a healer. He takes advantage of this moment of silence to examine the sickbay. It’s not as tidy as Mercedes’, and the labeled bottles are all out of order, but there’s a cat bed in the corner and an empty bird cage hanging from a hook on the ceiling. He can hear the pounding of feet above, and all around him is the familiar beat of the bellows being pumped. There’s a song in it somewhere, a shanty he recognizes, one of the old ones his mother used to sing on the docks of Fraldarius.

“What happened?” Felix asks, when he's had enough to drink to feel somewhat human again. “How many of us did you find?”

Marianne looks down. “You,” she says, and Felix’s stomach lurches. “One other. We haven’t seen your ship anywhere. You were on a boat.”

“A. What? No.” Felix pinches the bridge of his nose. “No, it wasn’t just us. There was a lifeboat, I _saw_ a lifeboat. Who else. Who was with me?”

Marianne twists her fingers in her lap. “Your. Ah.Your captain,” she says. “He’s still recovering, but he should be alr—No! No, sit down, you aren’t well enough to stand yet!”

Felix barely hears her. He stumbles out of the sickbay, his bare feet dry with sawdust, and nearly trips over a grey cat that darts past. It scampers off, a flicker of fur in the dim belly of the ship, and Felix staggers on. The Golden Deer may be unfamiliar, but Felix has been in and out of sailing vessels since he was old enough to walk, and he finds the stairs to the quarterdeck easily enough. His shoulder protests as he heaves himself up, and he winces at the blaze of sunlight that washes over him.

The deck of the Golden Deer is teeming with sailors, all of them hurriedly going about the usual business of repairing sails and rigging after a storm, scrubbing down the sea-washed deck, dangling from ropes to examine chipped and weathered patches on the hull. Felix scans the ship for the captain—Alliance officers tend to wear gold—and sees a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye. 

There, tied to the mainmast like a sailor in the old legends of sirens and harpies, kneels Dimitri.

Dimitri. The beast. The _creature_ that threw the Areadbhar head-first into a battle they couldn’t win, who told them to keep going, to get closer, who threw Felix from his post at the wheel to drive them to their deaths.

A man stands over Dimitri, speaking to him with a hand on Dimitri’s chin, but Felix only sees the wild look in Dimitri’s eye, the flex of his fingers. He scrambles down the deck, light-footed as always, and ignores the pain of the sun-warmed wood on his bare feet as he makes for a woman standing at the rail. He grabs her by the shoulder and unsheathes her sword.

“Hey!” she shouts. 

“I’ll return it,” Felix says, and steps forward. Dimitri startles at the sound of his voice, turns to look him in the eye, and the man standing over him twists round as well.

Felix grips the hilt of the sword.

“Sailor!” The man at Dimitri’s side has a commander’s voice, booming over the deck of the ship and laced with dominance. “On your knees!”

Felix staggers. Out of the corner of his eye, two sailors drop to the deck.

The man with Dimitri takes a step forward. Felix grits his teeth. He knows him from somewhere, recognizes those cold, calculating eyes, the dark hair, his foxlike smile. He’s a captain, he thinks. Possibly something more. “Sailor. On your knees.”

Felix sways to a halt. The force of his voice is too strong to ignore, but Dimitri is right _there,_ and Felix can’t—He has to—

The captain strides up to Felix and wrests the sword out of his grip. Felix lunges for it, but he jerks as he’s caught by the hair and held there, forced to meet the captain in the eyes. It’s then that an old memory stirs through the rage in Felix’s mind, recalling a smiling face in the back of the class at the Fodlan officer’s academy.

“On your knees, sailor,” Claude von Riegan says, a third time.

“You aren’t my captain,” Felix spits out. “And you aren’t my dominant.”

“Neither is he, I assume,” Claude says. “Unless you regularly kill your captains in Faerghus. I don’t know, you hear stories. But as long as you’re on _my_ ship—“ and here his voice goes dangerously quiet, “You don’t raise a sword against anyone unless I give the order. Disobeying that rule is a hanging offense. Not bending a knee when I give the order would be a whipping… Though, you might be the type who likes that. I won’t ask you again.”

Claude pulls Felix down by the hair, and Felix, dizzy with the sun and his fever and the pure outrage of Dimitri having survived when the others may well be lost to the sea, sinks to his knees.

***

Claude can almost _feel_ the _I told you so_ from Hilda, like a physical caress on the back of his neck, as he stares at Felix kneeling. Dimitri is snarling something and this is going to end badly. Claude needs to get control, fast. 

“Leonie,” he orders, and Leonie hurries over. He hands her back her sword. “Maybe keep an eye on that, next time, yeah?” 

“Whatever,” she mutters, but Claude gives her a sharp look and she nods, sheathes her sword and gives Felix a healthy glare. 

This, right here, is why Claude needs to get things in hand. Quickly. “Go find Lysithea and send her up here. Tell her she needs to watch Prince Angry over there. Tell her not to kill him but make sure she knows he’s dangerous and needs to stay there.” 

“Aye, aye,” Leonie says, and there’s only a little huff of sarcasm as she heads off to find Lysithea. 

That done, Claude reaches out and grabs Felix by the hair. He’s tempted to make him crawl, but he can see Felix is shivering, not quite over his fever and he’s also barefoot. “I’m real interested in what makes a sailor turn on his captain. You’re going to come with me and tell me.” 

“ _Fuck_ you,” Felix snarls. 

Claude’s jaw goes tight, but he backhands Felix and stares impassively down at him as he falls over on his side. “No. Get up and follow me, or I will tie you to that mast with your captain and let you two strangle each other with those chains.” 

“Don’t fucking tempt me,” Felix growls, pushing up on his hands. He spits blood on the deck. 

“Remind me to have you scrub that, later. Get up and follow me,” Claude says, coldly. “This is your last chance. I’ll have Raphael throw you to sharks if you don’t.” 

“Hmm, what a good idea,” Hilda mutters, from nearby. “I wonder who suggested that, first.” 

Felix’s fingers curl into the wood of the deck. He’s breathing hard, pale even though the sun is beginning to burn his fair skin. Fraldarius is known for sailors who can face the fiercest storms, but it seems calm seas and sunlight are their nemesis. 

For a moment, Claude really does think he’s going to have to do it. Haul this noble up and chuck him over, let him die alone, one more death on his conscience that already seems overburdened at the best of times. 

“Raphael,” Claude calls, tiredly. “Throw him over.” 

Felix pushes up to his feet. He’s trembling, furious, but he says, “I’m -- fine.” 

“Sharks wouldn’t get much of a meal out of him, anyway, Cap’n,” Raphael says, eternally cheerful. “Scrawny thing, ain’t he?” 

Claude heads below deck to his quarters, and apparently possessed of at least a survival instinct if nothing else, Felix Fraldarius follows. 

When they get to his quarters, Claude waves a hand and motions for Felix to enter. “Go kneel and _do not_ disobey me. I hope you know I was serious, earlier. I don’t need you on this ship and you’re alive because of my mercy and that’s it. You understand that, you’ll hold that biting tongue of yours and go kneel like a good submissive.” 

Felix looks like death warmed over and slapped with a sunburn. He stalks like one of the ship cats over to the corner, kneels as obstinately as anyone Claude’s ever seen, and it’s clear he’s both in pain and furious. 

Claude goes and finds a goblet of fresh water, then carries it over. He doesn’t let Felix have it. “You’re sick, you’re exhausted, and you just marched up onto the deck of my ship and tried to kill the captain of yours. Who I found you shipwrecked with. Want to explain that?” 

At Felix’s glare, Claude takes a nice long sip of water. 

“You think this will work? Fuck you, torture me if you want.” 

Claude rolls his eyes, but then he smiles at Felix; distant, pleasant, empty. “This doesn’t have to be so hard, you know. We’re having a conversation, Felix.” 

“Don’t use my fucking name,” Felix hisses. 

Claude backhands him, again. “I’d like to stop doing that. Give you this water. A hot bath. Some food, clothes, hey, even shoes. I know you know your way around a ship. If you hate Dimitri Blaiddyd so much, why don’t you stop acting like a bratty toddler who needs a nap and just answer my question?” 

Felix stares at him, panting, lip bloodied again. His long dark hair is a tangled mess in his face. He’s clearly not well. Claude would respect him for his stubbornness if it wasn’t annoying the living fuck out of him at the moment. “Well?” 

“I remember you,” Felix says, harsh and snide like that’s some kind of insult. “Claude von Riegan. You’re heir to a dukedom.” 

Claude shrugs. That’s never meant much of anything to him, not out here in the open water. He has other names, other legacies, that matter so much more. “So are you.” 

“Why the fuck didn’t you just let us die?” 

“Is that what you wanted?” Claude asks, moving closer. He keeps his voice easy, almost bored, his natural dominance threaded through it, subtle like a tapestry. “To die?” 

Felix stares at the floor and says nothing. 

Claude raises his hand. 

“Yes, damn you,” Felix hisses. “ _Yes_. You see him, don’t you? He’s not --” He stops, jaw clenching, but that’s enough for at least some water. 

“Here,” Claude says, gently, holding the goblet out. “Drink. Try and hit me with this and I’ll throw you overboard myself.” 

For all of Felix’s protestations that he was immune to torture or whatever that was, Faerghan bravado, maybe...he takes the goblet and drinks, thirstily, hand shaking so hard he spills half the water down his chest. Droplets glisten on his pale skin, the peek of dark hair at the waist of his ill-fitting trousers. 

He’s a mess. Claude’s fingers itch with the desire to take him, remake him into a proper soldier, force him to obey. He and his feral captain both have aroused all the most primal dominance instincts Claude has. It’s impossible not to want to break them both. 

To his shock, Felix hands the goblet back with gruff, “Thank you.” 

Not entirely without manners, then. 

“Sure. I’m not unreasonable. I would have let you die, if I was. But tell me, why did you want to?” He walks over and pours more water into the goblet, carries it back. 

“It’s not -- I didn’t want to,” Felix says, completely contradicting everything he’d just earlier. “Just. It would have been. Better. Maybe. Probably.” He scowls, eyes flicking to the goblet. 

Claude smiles at him. Give a thirsty man no water, he’ll fight you because he’s already thirsty. Give him a little water, he’ll do whatever you want for more. Some lesson his father taught him, years ago, captured prisoners of his own hog-tied and scowling on the deck. 

“What happens now is entirely up to you,” Claude says. “I’m not going to waste my time with someone who’d rather be chucked to the sharks, but I’m not going to condemn a perfectly capable sailor to Cethleann’s Locket if he’s willing to work. When you’ve healed a bit, of course.”  
He holds out the goblet. 

Felix takes it, and his hands seem steadier, this time. “He’s mad,” he says, after he drinks. “The -- captain. You must know it. He dragged us into a battle with a -- pirate ship, and we sank. Off the coast. The Areadbhar, everyone’s gone.” 

“Why would he --” 

Before Claude can get the question out, his cabin door is flung open and Lysithea storms into his room. Her ice-white hair is whipping around her face thanks to some esoteric breeze created from her magic, violet eyes ablaze, face furious. “That -- _thing_ \-- you told me to look after, Captain? _He tried to kill me._ He took one look at me and nearly tore the mainmast right off! What the _hell_ , Claude?” 

He hears Felix inhale sharply behind him; of all his crew, Lysithea’s dominance is nearly on par with Hilda’s -- maybe moreso, honestly. She certainly knows how to use it. 

“It’s because she looks like _her_ ,” Felix says, softly. 

“Looks like who?” Lysithea demands. 

Claude turns, goes down on his haunches and tips Felix’s face up. “Looks like who, Felix?” 

He’s about to offer a bath and clothes as a reward, but it turns out, he doesn’t need to. 

“The Flame Emperor,” says Felix. “The pirate he nearly sacrificed us all to kill.” 

***

“Mr. Molinaro.”

“ _Officer_ Molinaro,” Dedue says, for the third time. He sits ramrod straight in the chair _he_ had to pull in from the other room, his expression level, his skin taut from a day rowing under the open sky. His hands are wrapped in strips of his own undershirt, the scabs of broken blisters still raw, and he has half a mind to leave this small navy office at the edge of the docks, throw off his jacket, and walk into the sea.

He doesn’t.

Barely.

“You’re trying to tell me,” the clerk at the desk says, in a condescending tone that sets Dedue’s teeth on edge. “That the Areadbhar fell to the… Flame Emperor? A single pirate ship? Against one of Faerghus’ greatest man-o’-wars?”

“Yes,” Dedue says. There’s no point in arguing. “That is what I said.”

“And the rest of Captain Blaiddyd’s crew can attest to this?” the clerk asks.

“ _Yes._ ” Gods, Dedue is tired. He knows he had something to drink at the bar before he left the rest of his shellshocked, sun-addled crew to report in, but his throat certainly doesn’t remember. He could go to the horse trough out front and lie down in it, die a happy man.

“Hm. Odd.” The clerk makes a note on his ledger. “You said Molinaro? Duscuran name, isn’t it.”

Ah. “Yes,” Dedue says.

“Interesting,” the clerk says. “The king’s ship falls to Duscur some years ago, and now here we are, with a man of Duscur the only survivor of yet another attack.”

“Not the only survivor,” Dedue says. “Dimi—Captain Blaiddyd is out there. He and the Flame Emperor have bad blood between them. She wouldn’t let him die—“

“She?” The clerk raises his brows. “Are you _familiar_ with this Flame Emperor, Mr. Molinaro?”

“Officer,” Dedue says, through his teeth. “And I saw her. On her ship. I will require a ship and a crew to stage a rescue—“

“I believe I’ve heard enough for now, Mr. Molinaro,” the clerk says, closing his book. He stands. “You will, of course, remain in port until our investigation is complete.”

“Invest—Yes,” Dedue says, schooling his face into stillness. “Of course.”

He doesn’t bother to bow when he leaves.

Only a handful of the crew remain at the bar when he comes back. There’s Ingrid, nursing a mug of beer while Mercedes tuts over a cut on her shoulder, the light of her healing magic glowing over Ingrid’s skin. Annette, silent and shaken in the corner of their booth, staring down at her hands. And Ashe, of course, who stands up the moment Dedue enters, brushing back his hair with one hand.

“How did it go?” he asks. His face falls as Dedue stalks over to the table and sits down, hard. “Oh. Let me, I can get you something to drink.”

“Please,” Dedue says. “Thank you.”

Ashe’s face lights up for a brief instant, and his chapped lips split. He licks them involuntarily, his cheeks flushed with the sun, eyes still wide with shock, and turns for the bar.

“They won’t issue us a ship,” Dedue says. Ingrid looks up sharply. “And they suspect I may have a hand in the attack.”

“What?” Ingrid, of all people, the one who took the longest to warm up to the prospect of Dedue as Dimitri’s right hand man, sits up. Mercedes frowns slightly and pulls her back down. “You can’t be serious. Anyone who knows you—“

“A very small number of people know me,” Dedue says. Dimitri. His family, lost to the massacre that followed the death of King Lambert. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“What do we do, then?” Annette asks. “If they take Dimitri, they’ll… you know he wasn’t… well.”

“It wasn’t a sickness of the mind,” Mercedes says, as she always does, when the crew begins to whisper and Dimitri stands at the wheel, muttering to his ghosts. “I would have seen it.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Annette says, as Ashe returns with a mug for Dedue. Dedue takes it with a nod of thanks, and Ashe smiles again, a light flickering. “They’ll think he’s mad. They’ll kill him if they have the chance.”

“Maybe they’ll ransom him,” Ashe says. “Most pirates would. They’re always low on cash, it’s basically a prerequisite. Pirate ships are like if mercenaries only got paid half of what they’re owed.”

“You know a great deal about them,” Ingrid says. Ashe shrugs.

“You pick things up. So what’s going to happen?”

“None of us have the resources to buy a ship,” Dedue says. “And I doubt it will be long before the navy arrests me for sabotage.” The others stare blankly. “It’s a logical next step. They need a scapegoat. Who better than a man of Duscur?”

“That’s heinous,” Ashe says, hotly. He quickly looks down when Dedue turns his way.

“Maybe I can, um. Write my dad,” Annette says, in a soft voice.

“I have a brother with a ship,” Mercedes says, suddenly. They all turn to stare at her. “Ah, well. In a way. You’ve heard of the ship of the Death Knight?”

Annette sighs. Ashe’s shoulders slump.

“Something that isn’t a fairytale, Mercedes,” Ingrid says.

“Oh.” Mercedes’ voice is prim. “Alright.”

“You’re sure the captain’s alive, though,” Ashe says, after a moment of silence. He’s running his finger over the whorls of the table, brows knit tight.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll do anything to get him back?” Ashe asks.

Dedue nods. Ashe sucks on his lower lip. His freckles are dark against his sunburned face, and he takes a steadying breath, still refusing to look up from the table.

“Then maybe we need to expand our horizons,” he says. Dedue leans forward. “I have a friend at a port a few days’ ride from here. He might be able to help us, um, _acquire_ a ship.”

“Acquire as in…” Ingrid’s frowning, not even wincing as Mercedes reaches for the wound on her arm.

“As in commandeer,” Ashe says. The table goes silent again, and finally raises his gaze to meet Dedue’s. “You see, my friend, he used to be my captain.” He sighs. “Back when I was a pirate.”

***

Tea on the Black Eagle is a complicated affair. It started with Ferdinand, who, even when Hubert set him to scraping barnacles off the hull when they were in port for repairs, would stop everything halfway through to boil water and rummage through the dry tea leaves in their limited supplies. Then Dorothea came aboard, rising in the ranks like a comet despite her limited experience at sea, and suddenly there were ship’s hands running from deck to deck and scurrying below, holding pots of tea they poured into tin cups for the sailors working there. Even those climbing the rigging would clamber down to have a cup, and the entire ship would go silent for a few minutes before coming to life again.

Now, Edelgard sips from her own mug as she leans on the rail next to the wheel, watching Petra steer the ship slantwise through the wind. Petra’s violet hair is tied in a heavy braid, woven through with fake pearls by Dorothea’s careful hand, and she hums to herself as she navigates the ship through the waves.

“The day is beautiful,” she says, and Edelgard glances up from her tea. Petra smiles and jerks her head to the side. “Is it not?”

Edelgard follows her gaze. Dorothea climbs the rigging in a pair of Petra’s trousers and her own frilly white shirt, and the dark stripe of the collar at her neck flickers as the wind blows past. She raises her right hand, and a weak patch of rope twists together, strengthens, mending itself with a flash of clever, subtle magic. 

Petra smiles, half leaning on the wheel, as Dorothea pushes back her mass of dark hair.

“I suppose it is,” Edelgard says, with a slight smile of her own.

“We should go to port,” Petra says, reaching for her cup from its holder near the wheel. “Find that demon you like, with the impossible hair.”

“She isn’t a demon,” Edelgard says. “But impossible is an apt description.”

“You like impossible ones,” Petra says. How she manages to grip the wheel one-handed is a marvel in and of itself, but she does, her muscles straining as she sips her lukewarm tea. “It is a shame we didn’t find your beast.”

“He isn’t mine.” 

Petra doesn’t answer. Someone in the rigging starts to sing, an old tune about a man who ran afoul of the sea, and Edelgard shivers as other voices join in, building into a low, eerie chant that echoes over the water. Snatches of it disappear in the strong wind, but then it builds again, and Edelgard curls her fingers around her mug. Of course, the song ends badly. So many of them do. There is no end of dire warnings, stories of sailors who sell their souls or are eaten by the ocean, who look into the darkness below and lose a piece of themselves there. 

She wonders if something like that happened to Dimitri. If he fell, that day when the world went wrong and his father’s ship sank in the waves, and called out for help in the dark of the sea. If something answered.

Edelgard had called out, once. But all she ever heard back had been the echo of her own voice, until even that faded away. 

“Captain.” Petra’s voice is sharp, laced with the subtle dominance she only employs when she needs the sailors to fall in line. “The bones are moving.”

Edelgard looks up. The wheel of the Black Eagle is a strange thing—The head of an axe is fixed in the center, on a rod that turns separately from the wheel itself, and the axe is made of yellowed, polished bone. It usually lies solitary and still in the heart of the wheel, but now, it shifts slightly, the edge flexing with the beat of a pulse.

It’s old magic, this axe. They say that it seeks out its own kind, drawn to the bones that once made a terrible whole, and that any sailor in its possession is doomed to be eaten by the sea.

It’s fitting, then, that Edelgard inherited it with the Black Eagle. She was already eaten long ago.

The axe jerks sharply to the east, then back again. Petra’s fingers flex and curl on the spokes of the wheel. “Captain. Do we follow?”

Edelgard looks to the east. Somewhere out there, in the dark waters, lies the bones that make the heart of this ancient creature. It is said that the one who holds it, who is worthy of it, can kill with a thought, see into the minds of their fellows, breathe life into the dead. It is the oldest and most powerful magic, and every great power in the world has sought it, for a time.

Edelgard squeezes her mug. Her nails screech across the metal.

“Yes,” she says. “We follow.”

Petra nods. The wheel spins in her hands, and the Black Eagle slowly turns to the east. 

That’s when Edelgard hears it. A voice on the wind. She jerks back, and a breeze winds around her, too deliberate to be anything but magic, whipping her white hair into a frenzy at her back. Petra hisses out a curse in her own language, and a voice speaks into Edelgard’s ear, soft and far too familiar.

“Emperor,” it says. “You are needed at the Abyss.”

“I have a lead,” Edelgard snaps. Her coat flaps behind her in the unnatural breeze, and the axe twitches, as though sensing the presence of a new spell grating against the magic of its core.

“It is not your place to question us, girl,” the voice says. Edelgard grits her teeth. “Come to us in the Abyss. Our plans have changed with the loss of Areadbhar, and we will have you at the fore of it.”

“Fine,” Edelgard says. She steps back, and the wind untangles, shredded by the welcome touch of a true sea breeze. “Fine. Petra.”

“Yes, Captain,” Petra says. Her voice is clipped, professional, stripped of its former warmth.

“Turn the ship around,” Edelgard orders. She turns on her heel, jaw clenched, eyes blazing with heat. As she steps forward, sailors fall out of her way, fleeing her gaze like mice before the gaze of a hawk. “And set a course for the Abyss.”

***

Claude makes the decision to head to Abyss when it’s clear his crew is ready for a little R&R.

Felix, after he’s been watered, dressed and given a proper pair of boots, is sent to work -- with Lysithea looking after him, dominant enough to keep him in line though he seems to be better when he’s not around his captain. 

Former captain. Claude can’t imagine how Felix was happy on a ship when the first thing he did upon being rescued was _try to kill the captain_. But Felix seems fine with being sent to do odd jobs, and Claude watches as he climbs the rigging to mend it. He’s limber and sure-footed, making his way up without a single bobble or falter even given his earlier fever. 

Claude feels a low stir of desire as he watches; putting Felix on his knees was satisfying, but in more of a grim way than anything playful or indulgent. And dragging a wild Dimitri Blaiddyd back from the deck to his quarters -- it seemed safest, honestly -- was just a lot of work. Dominant or no, Dimitri was strong and half-lost to some madness that hazed over his one remaining eye, leaving him a muttering, panting, scowling mess of a man who was more mythical monster than king. 

“You sure this is a good idea, then?” Lorenz asks, as Raphael turns the wheel toward the Abyss. 

“I think we could all use a break, yeah,” Claude says, watching the horizon. It’s clear but there’s a bite in the wind, a shiver over his skin, that says it won’t stay this way for long. He sees Felix out of the corner of his eye, kneeling on the deck and scrubbing the blood he left when Claude backhanded him onto the deck earlier. 

Lysithea stands by, hands on her hips, but there’s something in Felix’s bearing as he scrubs that says the work has been good for him, put him -- if not under, at least improved his disposition enough to make Claude feel comfortable leaving him alone before he goes down to check on Dimitri. 

First though, he stops by where Felix is scrubbing and says, “Good work, sailor. Keep it up.” 

Felix glances up, glares, and returns to his scrubbing. 

“You have my permission to punish him if he’s not behaving,” Claude says, to Lysithea. 

Felix huffs and scrubs harder. Lysithea shrugs. “He’s fine so far. Less shouty than the other one.” 

Not wanting to bring up Dimitri, Claude just gives her a nod and goes back down to his quarters. 

He’s barely in the door when he hears the muttering. Dimitri is pacing, dragging his heavy chains across the small area he’s been allotted, and he barely looks up as Claude walks in. He’s talking to someone, agitated, and again Claude can’t help but look at him and think _this isn’t natural_.

He doesn’t even notice Claude there for a few seconds, continuing to mutter and pace like a chained wyvern in a snit. Claude waits, patiently, and finally Dimitri’s hulking form stops its pacing and he turns, a scowl on his face. 

“You need a bath. Clothes. You don’t look much like a captain right now.” Claude waits, but that gets nothing more than a glare. “Think you can handle getting cleaned up, or is this going to be a thing?” At least the rain washed away some of the salt, but he still needs to wash his hair, which is lank and tangled, and his clothes are still sodden, his face sunburned. 

Dimitri says nothing, but he’s at least focused on Claude, now, which is something. _What is wrong with you, Captain Blaiddyd?_ He can’t help that shudder of _wrongness_ he feels just looking at Dimitri, some sick aura blooming around him like a poisoned flower. 

“So this is going to be a thing,” Claude says, and sighs. “I really wish it didn’t have to be.” 

“I don’t need anything of yours, pirate,” Dimitri hisses at him. But he sways on his feet, and Claude realizes he’s also probably thirsty, hungry, he’s still _human_ even if there’s something decidedly off about him. 

Claude doesn’t bother arguing about the title. He’s only a pirate some of the time, but it still fits. “We’re heading to a -- sanctuary, for sailors. We need to figure out what to do with you.” 

Dimitri just snarls something and starts pacing again. 

Claude sighs and moves closer. “Why did your sailor try and kill you? He says it’s because you dragged them into a battle against the Flame Emperor --” 

The name makes Dimitri’s entire body vibrate with rage. “I _will_ kill her,” he snarls, and there’s something there in the words, a thread of subtle magic that makes Claude taste sulfur at the back of his throat and feels like something pricking like needles at his skin. “No one, not Felix, not you, not the Goddess herself will stop me.” 

“Well, I don’t believe in your Goddess and I just met Felix, but I can tell you that I’ve pretty much stopped you with those chains, so maybe if you want any chance to actually kill her, you should stop fighting me, yeah?” 

Dimitri blinks. Claude can see, through the fall of his hair, the empty socket where his missing eye should be. It’s vivisected by silvered scars, and Claude wonders what happened, how he lost it. But he doesn’t ask, because he can see it, the closer he gets -- Dimitri is exhausted. His shoulders are starting to slump, and his eye is glassy, unfocused. 

Claude goes to the distiller and pours a jug of water, then goes back to Dimitri. He holds it out. “Here. You can fight me, or not, but you need to drink water.” 

“I’ll take nothing from you.” Dimitri makes a half-swipe at the goblet, as if he intends to knock it to the floor.

Claude pulls his hand back just in time. He’s annoyed, and it cracks the edges of his usual facade enough that he snaps, “It’s just _water_ ,” and gives in a bit to pettiness, and dumps it unceremoniously over Dimitri’s head. “See?” 

Dimitri startles, and in a voice far clearer than any he’s heard this far, he says, “I cannot believe you threw that water on me.” 

Claude shrugs. “You were being ungrateful. Would you like to have some to drink?” 

Dimitri surprises him by nodding. “Yes.” He sounds disgruntled, but not angry, and Claude is surprised to see his gaze lowered. 

Confused, he goes to get a towel and some water, then carries both back and says, “I’m sorry I did that. You’re frustrating.” 

Dimitri takes the towel and rubs it over his face, then hands it back and takes the water. His chains rattle, but he makes no attempt to hurt Claude or lash out at him. In fact, after he finishes the water he actually says, “thank you.” 

“Huh. So you have some manners. I did hear you were a prince.” He takes the jug and the towel and sets them on the table, then finds a pillow that is meant for the captain’s submissive -- which Claude doesn’t have -- and puts it and a blanket on the floor. “You need to eat. Do I have to throw food at you, first, to make you do that?” 

Dimitri shakes his head. “No.” 

“Okay. Good.” This is better. He brings the pitcher of water over and sets it on the ground by the pillow. “If I have my ship’s healer bring you food, a hot bath and a change of clothes, do you give me your word you will not hurt her and that you’ll make use of them?” 

Dimitri gives a bitter laugh, harsh as saltwater on an open wound. “I do. For what it’s worth.” 

Claude strides over and takes his chin in his fingers, tight. Dimitri is taller than him, but Claude’s dominance is not affected by Dimitri’s larger size or frightening appearance. “It’s worth a lot if you keep it, Dimitri. Do you understand? I don’t know what’s going on with your sailor but he’s happy enough to be working, I’ll take him ashore and leave you some time to get yourself together. My healer also knows enough offensive magic to knock you out for a week, but that won’t matter because if she has to use it? I’ll throw you over myself, let you rot on the bottom of the sea, chains and all. You understand me?” 

Dimitri still glares at him, but he at least nods. “I’ve no reason to hurt anyone here.” 

_Just yourself_ , Claude thinks, but doesn’t say. “See that you don’t come up with one while I’m gone.” He releases Dimitri’s chin and steps back. “Have some water. Breathe. You should also sleep.” 

“Yes, yes,” Dimitri says, but more like a cranky toddler than a monster. He drags his chains over to the pillow, sits on it, and immediately starts drinking -- directly out of the pitcher. 

“Good, right? It’s distilled, the water, so it’s cold and fresh. Almyran technology. Very advanced.” His eyes widen at how much of it Dimitri is drinking. He’s dehydrated, but the rain would have helped some, though the storm had been rough enough that maybe Dimitri swallowed enough seawater to negate it entirely. 

He turns to leave, and is surprised by Dimitri’s voice. 

“Claude.” A pause. “Captain.” 

Claude turns, eyebrows raised, one hand on his hip. “Yes?” 

“I remember you,” Dimitri says. His voice is soft, no hint of his usual rage. He’s sitting with his knees up, one arm propped across them, looking at Claude from between strands of his hair and his eye looks less glassy. He seems almost like a different person. “From before. When we were at Garreg Mach.” 

Claude gives a little bow. “Good to be memorable.” 

“Thank you for saving me,” Dimitri says, and while there’s a dullness to his voice like a blade long in need of a turn on the sharpening stone, it doesn’t sound insincere. “It might have been better if you hadn’t. But thank you.” 

“You’re welcome. Please try and get some rest. I don’t want to have to keep you in those chains indefinitely.” He waits for a moment, but Dimitri’s eye closes and he leans his head back, body slowly relaxing. 

The last thing Claude does before he leaves to find Marianne is fill the pitcher _and_ the jug with cool, clean, fresh water. It seemed to have helped. 

***

To say the ride to the border of the Abyss is awkward would be a gross understatement.

Ashe spends most of it tucked in the corner of the cart they’ve hired to drop them off, a bundle of nervous energy and twitching legs, half convinced the others will throw him off any second and be done with him. He tries to explain a few times— _I did what I had to, I got out when I had the chance_ —but Ingrid just bursts into a stilted, barely-contained rant about public services Ashe never saw the shadow of before Mercie shuts her down with a hand on her arm and a withering look. Well, withering for Mercie, anyways.

Dedue just sits there, stone-faced, and says nothing. Ashe tries not to let it get to him. Dedue’s always like this, except when he’s watering the plants he keeps in the shade of the Captain’s quarters, when his eyes soften and he almost smiles. He treats them so gently, reverently, and they flourish under his touch as though Dedue were the sun itself.

Sometimes, Ashe almost wishes _he_ could be a plant.

Ashe can tell they’re nearly there by the smoke. Cookfires and chimneys blacken the air above the Abyss, most days, and Ashe can almost taste it on his tongue, even some four years gone and a lifetime away. He cranes over the edge of the cart and takes a shaky breath.

“Okay,” he says. “So before we get there, I’d better tell you about the rules.”

“Rules?” Ingrid asks. She scoffs. “Do pirates even have those?”

“I mean, yeah,” Ashe says. “Sort of. Uh. There’s a captain in charge of the port, most of the time. Yuri, of the Ashen Wolves. His gang runs the place. There’s no murder on the port—keep that past the border. No violence unless you’re in a fighting ring or someone challenges you to a duel—Duels are outside of the port limits, too. No disrespecting the brothels, that counts as violence, and he’ll have you put the rocks in your own coat before he drowns you for _that._ No damage to a ship, either. Cut rigging or a ripped sail gets you dragged behind a horse.”

“Saints,” Annette whispers.

Ashe looks at his knees. He can feel Dedue watching him, his gaze steady. “Stealing’s fine, if you don’t get caught. If you _are_ , you belong to the crew that caught you until you pay off your debt.”

There’s a short, uncomfortable silence at this.

“Was that…” Ingrid’s voice is soft. “Was that how you were—“

“And you’re not anything as a captain if you don’t have submissives lining up to kneel for you,” Ashe says, quickly, before she can follow _that_ line of thought to its logical conclusion. “Dedue, sir, you’ll need one of us collared to you. It should probably be me. I’ve done it before, and I know Captain Yuri. He might remember me.”

He finally glances at Dedue, who watches him impassively. “If you want,” Ashe adds.

“Alright,” Dedue says. “If it gets us a ship.”

It might not, but Ashe doesn’t want to say that out loud. Instead, he starts peeling off his shirt, methodically undoing the buttons. He bites his lips hard, musses his hair, runs his hand through the dirt of the cart and rubs it into his knees. When he looks up, Dedue is still staring at him, brows raised slightly, and Ashe flushes pink to his shoulders.

They buy a collar at one of the leatherworker stalls near the border. It’s cheap, but that’s fine, and Ashe gets a chain for the loop that he attaches a little too easily before he hands it off to Dedue. Dedue pauses before he takes it, and Ashe’s cheeks burn.

“You might need to. Be a little rough,” Ashe says.

“I would not be rough with a submissive,” Dedue says, slowly. Ashe thinks of the flowers blooming at the cabin window of the wrecked Areadbhar. The last time he knelt for anyone, for the captain who took comfort in hidden places, who laughed when Ashe would empty his pockets of the jewels rich nobles flaunted so carelessly, tossing them one by one. Hands in his hair. A wry kiss farewell.

“I don’t mind,” Ashe says. Dedue gives the chain a faint, gentle tug, and Ashe closes his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Do submissives here usually apologize without reason?” Dedue asks. “Is that a law here, too?”

“I. No.”

“Then don’t,” Dedue says. His lips curve slightly, and Ashe looks down before his face can give too much away. Hell. He’s fucked. Maybe Yuri _does_ remember him, and he can take Ashe off to one of the rooms in his inn, fuck this out of him before Ashe says or does something he’ll probably regret. 

“Yes, sir,” he says.

The Abyss hasn’t changed much since Ashe was here last. The brothels still line Cherry Park Lane, with dominants calling out to Annette until she blushes darkly and bumps into Mercedes’ shoulder, some eyeing Ingrid, others asking Dedue if he could let them borrow his toy for the night. Dedue ignores them, which is just as well, and Ashe gently points him towards the massive, sprawling inn overlooking the docks. There are pirates crowding the place, some sporting armbands, some in uniform, with a few scattered civilians who’ve wandered into the Abyss for a bit of fun before they scurry back to their comfortable lives. 

“Goddess, maybe I should have stayed at home,” Ingrid whispers.

“Oh, I’m sure they’re secretly lovely people,” Mercedes says, and Dedue almost _laughs._

“Legally, they have to be,” Ingrid says. “Apparently.”

“So long as Yuri’s still in charge, we’re fine,” Ashe says, and glances at the man standing guard at the door. “Which I think he is.”

The man at the door, Balthus, smiles when Dedue approaches. A grin should look strange on a man with a broad chest and a heavy chain tied to his neck and around his torso, but it fits him, and it broadens when he catches sight of Ashe. “Hey,” he says. “I know you. You’re the. What’s his name. The one with the fingers.”

“The one with the what?” Annette whispers.

Ashe sighs. “Lightfinger Ashe,” he says.

Balthus snaps twice. “That’s it! The hell have you been, kid? We thought you went on the straight and narrow.”

“Tried to,” Ashe says. “This is Captain—“

“Molly,” Dedue says. “Ashe. Heel.”

Ashe sucks in a sharp breath and steps back, settling at Dedue’s side. Balthus doesn’t even blink.

“Here to see the captain?” he asks. Dedue nods, shortly. “Hell, why not. He’s always got an interest in what happens when his crew flies the coop, anyways. Ladies,” he adds, nodding to Annette, Mercedes, and Ingrid.

“A pleasure,” Mercedes says. 

“Want me to announce you?” Balthus asks. Dedue gives him one of his impassive looks and strides past him, keeping Ashe’s leash pulled taut.

“Will they try to touch you?” he whispers, as they enter the inn. The scent of jasmine washes over them, and Ashe’s breath comes short at the memory of kneeling here, crawling along the boards, pressing his lips to a scarred inner thigh as fingers brushed through his hair.

“No,” he breathes. “Not without permission. Against the rules.”

“Oh,” Annette says, as they walk through the foyer and into the main common room. The inn is much the same as Ashe left it—A haphazard mix of a library and a bar, like a university crash-landed into a brothel and never bothered to clean itself up again. Worn tables covered with fine runners line one side of the room, while a bar and half a stage stands on the other. Ashe shivers at the sight of it, and Dedue touches the back of his neck, warm and steadying.

“Well, now.” Ashe freezes as a soft, far too amused voice calls out across the crowded room. “If our dear old Ashe hasn’t come back to us.”

A man stands up at the other end of the common room. His companions glance up, following his slow, sure path through the crowd, and Ashe is suddenly grateful for Dedue’s hand on the back of his neck. Captain Yuri, dressed as immaculately as ever, his delicate face belying a cold, brutal calculation, stops a few steps from Dedue and graces him with a curt nod. Dedue remains still as stone, and Yuri turns to Ashe, smiling wryly.

“Come, dear thing,” he says. “Is this any way to greet your old captain?”

“No, sir,” Ashe says. He looks at Dedue. “With your permission.”

Dedue nods. Ashe turns back to Yuri and half bows, holding up a hand. Yuri smiles sidelong and extends his own, and Ashe bows deeply, pressing Yuri’s knuckles to his forehead. When he straightens, Yuri sighs and flips his palm up.

Ashe drops two silver rings into his open hand.

“You missed the bracelet,” Yuri says, putting on the rings again. “I don’t know if I should be—“ Ashe holds up his wrist, which sparkles with a fine golden chain, and Yuri laughs, tweaks Ashe’s chin with two fingers, and slaps him across the face.

Ingrid surges forward. Dedue frowns, brows lowered, but Ashe just grins and sinks to his knees.

“Hey,” he says, and Yuri rolls his eyes. Thin fingers slide through Ashe’s bangs.

“Hey, yourself,” Yuri says. His eyes narrow in the faintest hint of a true smile, and he ruffles Ashe’s already unkempt hair. “And welcome home.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for a little R&R at Abyss. Claude needs some answers, Ashe needs a ship, Edelgard and Hilda need a room, Ingrid needs a night with two hot pirate dommes. Yuri is every inch the pirate lord of his domain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Hilda and Edelgard don't exactly have _hatesex_ , precisely, and they're both dommes, but it's a little mean. They're both into it, though. 
> 
> It's also probably worth mentioning that this 'verse is a little darker in terms of the ds-elements than others in the series. This is due in part to the setting, of course, but we did want to mention it. 
> 
> Again, this is in no way a reflection of modern kink anything -- it's all fantasy, here, folks.
> 
> Particular CWs for this chapter include: f/f anal pegging, public sex, face slapping, slapping places other than one's face, manipulation, voyeurism, and masochistic inclinations from punishment.

After some discussion, Claude leaves Raphael, Leonie, Marianne and Ignatz on the ship and takes Lorenz, Hilda, and Lysithea with him to the Abyss. He makes Felix join him and the others with a sharp command, since he doesn’t quite trust Felix not to go straight for Dimitri to finish what he started.

Felix barely seems bothered; the day of hard work seems to have put him under enough that it barely takes any of Claude’s natural dominance to make him accompany Claude. He’s fixed his hair into something resembling a ponytail and changed into clean clothes, which means for the moment Claude’s flotsam and jetson are both being relatively behaved. A miracle.

The Abyss is busy, as usual, crowded with people who give them all a brief glance; Leonie, as usual, gets six or seven men trying to get her attention. She ignores them, muttering under breath, and Lorenz pats her on the back.

“They do need someone to teach them manners, don’t they,” he says.

“It won’t be me,” Leonie huffs. “Who has time for that? Either start out with ‘em or leave me alone.”

Lorenz smiles at her. “You could have them all at your feet with a word, darling.” He inclines his head like some kind of visiting prince at everyone they pass. “But I know how you feel about clutter.”

“Besides, Cap’n’s taking up all the extra room, dragging men out of the sea --”

“Shhh,” Claude says, as they approach the inn. “Don’t give up my secrets for free, that’s not how anything works, here.”

“I’m right here,” Felix says, but falls quiet at a sharp look from Claude. He really must be under, though he’s as tense as ever and Claude wonders idly what it would take for him to relax. There’s another sweet rush of heat low in his gut when he lets himself think about it -- he can’t help it, fighty submissives are his favorite -- but Claude knows how dangerous Abyss can be if you’re not on your game, so that will have to wait for later.

“Well, hello!” The guard, who Claude’s met a few times before, is a tall, well-built man wearing a chain around his chest -- for the aesthetic, Claude assumes, but knowing Yuri it could be more -- with messy purple hair and the sort of smile that makes you think you’re about to lose all your gold in a bet you don’t remember placing. “Been some time, there, Claude.”

“Sure has, Balthus,” Claude says. “Yuri around?”

“Yeah, but he’s busy. You got a request? I could maybe get a message quicker, if I had some incentive.”  
“Are you broke, again? What happened to the last incentive I gave you when I needed info, huh?” Claude tilts his head, smiles, charming and cold. He knows this game.

“You’re cheap as shit, Claude, what do you think? Lasted me, what, a night at the bar?”

“Yuri doesn’t give you a discount?”

Balthus laughs, loud enough to draw gazes their way. “You have _met_ Yuri, right?”

“Ugh.” Lysithea, who’s been mostly quiet this entire time, steps out from where she was standing behind Felix. “Can we just go in, already? Banter with Claude on your own time, I’ll be dead before you let us in.”

Balthus’s eyes settle on Lysithea. “Hold your horses, little lady, and --”

“No.” Lysithea steps right up into Balthus’s space -- as much as she can, given she’s likely a foot shorter -- and tilts her face up. “If you can’t stop posturing, get on your knees.”

A few people do -- including Balthus, who does it so quickly he look almost surprised. And then, delighted. “ _Damn_ , Claude, where’ve you been keeping her?”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Lysithea says. She grabs Balthus’s hair and pulls it back. “Never call me _little lady_ again, either. And Claude’s not giving you money, just go tell Yuri we’re here. I’m _hungry_ and I want some _cake_ and a _bed_ , _not_ listen to you banter for an hour and do it anyway.”

Hilda, holding Claude’s arm, bursts into laughter. “Wow.”

Balthus smiles up at Lysithea, then lowers his gaze almost immediately. “Sure thing. If you’re still holding my hair, though, gonna be hard to stand up.”

“Not my fault,” Lysithea snaps, then pulls it again for good measure. She finally steps back and Balthus staggers to his feet, likely surprised -- as most people are -- but just how much dominance is in that small body.

Claude bites back a laugh as Balthus outright _bows_ before opening the door, and Lysithea sweeps in without a backward glance.

“Claude,” Balthus says, as Claude goes to follow. “Who was _she_? I think I’m in _love_ , pal.”

Claude shakes his head. “Lysithea. She’s the most powerful dark mage I’ve ever met in my life, so better tread carefully. I once saw her dark spikes a man in the balls for catcalling her.”

“Oh,” Balthus says, but not like he’s worried.

“Claude,” Lorenz huffs. “Can we please go in.”

“That never happened,” Hilda whispers, as they leave a dazed Balthus to contemplate sexual torture or whatever he’s thinking about, heading inside to find a spot to sit and regroup. “Lysithea. She never takes submissives. She’s just bossy. Why’d you even say that?”

“Figured I would help,” says Claude.

“How? By warning him off, or doing the opposite?” Hilda demands, sprawling in a seat.

“Uh.” Claude waves a hand. “I meant the former, but I forgot he’s a painslut.”

Lysithea returns to their table in the corner, hands on her hips. “I don’t want to hear a word.” The firelight behind her makes her look like a demon out of hell giving some kind of impassioned political speech. “They’re bringing some food. I just ordered what I wanted. Deal with it.”

Lorenz makes a face. “I certainly will not. Leonie, let us go order something with actual nutritional value for the table. Claude, wait here for Yuri.”

“Telling him that will just make him leave,” Lysithea huffs. She’s a little pink, and Claude notices her eyes keep sliding toward the door. Interesting.

“Oh, no,” drawls Lorenz.

“Come on,” Leonie says, grabbing his arm. “I’m starving, let’s go.”

Hilda tosses her hat on the table and shakes her hair out. “Yuri better not make us wait. I’m not going to spend our whole R&R at this table listening to you all bicker. I get that enough on board the ship.”

Claude loves his crew, he does, but Hilda’s not wrong. He’s still fighting this completely unwanted attraction to Felix -- who is standing as if he wants to kneel but also doesn’t want to admit it, and is too stubborn to sit down -- and it would be nice to have a few hours to blow off some steam. Metaphorically speaking.

“Felix, kneel,” Claude says, pointing. “You’re looming.”

“I am not your submissive,” Felix says, but the bite is less than it was earlier that day, so there’s that.

“You’re not my bodyguard, either, are you?” Claude turns to look up at him. “That’s what you look like, standing at my back like that.”

“I’m not your anything,” Felix snaps, hands on his hips.

Gods. Claude wants to grab him by the neck, haul him down on his knees and shove his cock down Felix’s throat. Which is definitely not happening, so he has to get his shit together and yeah, definitely find someone to play around with while he’s here. Yuri’s a dominant, but going to bed with him is like trying to out-seduce himself so at least it requires effort.

“Gonna try and kill me with the bread knife or something?” Claude asks, staring up into his face. It’s sunburned, and his mouth is a little tight, but he’s lost that wild look in his eyes. Like Dimitri when he had some water. Maybe this is just what Faerghans are like when they’re hangry.

“No,” Felix says. “I -- I’m still a sailor. That’s -- you’re the captain of the ship I’m - I’m on right now.”

“So that would make me your captain,” Claude says. “For the moment. Yeah?”

“Whatever,” says Felix, arms crossed over his chest.

“Felix, kneel,” Claude says, and there’s enough dominance in it that it only takes another few seconds and a huff before Felix goes to his knees. Claude leans in and takes him by the messy ponytail, pulling in much the same way Lysithea did earlier to Balthus. “When Yuri’s here, _keep your mouth shut_. He’s useful but he’s not trustworthy. It’s better if you just don’t talk at all unless I tell you to.”

Lorenz and Leonie return, followed soon by a barmaid -- Constance -- with an effusive smile, who flirts with Lorenz and Leonie and winks at Claude as she sets out their drinks. By the time Claude’s had a few sips of the ale, he sets it aside and makes himself wait for their dinner; he’s hungry enough that it’s going to his head, and the last thing he needs is to be at any disadvantage around Yuri, however slight.

Speaking of --

“Well, well. Who do I have here? Captain Claude von Riegan and his merry band of misfits,eh? I hear you put my head of security on his knees. Tsk, tsk, Claude. You know he likes that even more than gold, don’t you?”

Yuri Leclerc, the infamous former pirate turned lord of the Abyss, sidles up with one of his many smiles and those cold eyes that look like spring lavender, and Claude stuffs a piece of bread in his mouth, attempting to fortify himself for battle. Exchanging words of any sort with Yuri is like exchanging cannon fire, and Claude knows he can’t be caught unaware.

“Well, then, consider it a gift. You got some time? I need to talk. Private would be good.” Claude keeps his voice easy, light.

“Depends,” Yuri says, because of course he does. Instead of answering, he looks at Felix. “Didn’t know you’d taken a submissive.”

Claude hears Felix inhale and shoves a piece of bread in _his_ mouth to stave off any disasters. “New development. About that meeting. I can make it worth your while.”

“Ugh,” says Hilda. “Show-off. I’m gonna go find my own entertainment. Later, Captain.” She grabs her ale and is off without another word.

“I might have another offer,” Yuri purrs, which, also not a surprise. “You sure you can make it better than that?”

“Depends on what it is,” Claude says. “But I think you know I’m a man of my word.”

“Mmm,” says Yuri, then laughs. “I guess it depends, friend. Which man, exactly, is giving it to me?”

“This is so stupid,” Lysithea mutters, stabbing her cake with a fork. “Just go fuck already.”

“She’s the one that put Balthus on his knees,” Claude points out.

Yuri eyes her with interest, then gives Claude a calculating look. “It’s nice to see you again, at any rate.” He leans in and presses a cool kiss to Claude’s cheek, murmuring,“Meet Balthus by the springs in an hour. Bring that pretty submissive. Maybe we can work something out.” He straightens and gives them all a bow. “I’ve a private party to return to, but please, enjoy your stay.” He winks at Lysithea, and then leaves.

Bringing Felix is not ideal, but Claude will just have to go with it. What choice does he have? And he’s half-hard under the table, from that brief press of Yuri’s mouth to his _face_ , so he’s just going to have to wing it. Luckily, Claude’s always been good at that.

***

“Oh, my,” Mercedes says, as soon as Captain Yuri leaves them alone in one of the back rooms of the inn, surrounded by plush pillows and paintings of sirens luring sailors to their deaths. High candles set in decorative holders cast the shadow of flowers on the wall, and Ashe kneels on a pillow next to Dedue, watching them shift over his face. “He was certainly very. Um.”

“Yes,” Annette says. She lunges for her drink. “Very. But this is nice, right? Not at all piratey, really. There are even flowers, look.”

“Pirates can still like flowers,” Ingrid says. “It doesn’t erase the blood on their hands.” She glances at Ashe and away. “Not that. I’m sure not every pirate…”

“It’s fine,” Ashe says. He runs his finger under his collar as Ingrid carefully tears off a piece of bread from a low tray. “Look, we don’t have time. Yuri’s gonna come at us sideways, okay? He always does. But he owes me a favor, so we might be able to scrape by. Just don’t actually tell him who we are or what we’re after.”

“What if the favor isn’t enough?” Annette asks.

Ashe shrugs. “I’ll work it out. Yuri and I have a. A history. I can always—“

“No.”

Ashe goes still. The dominance in Dedue’s voice is heavy, almost overpowering up close, and he looks at Ashe with a heat that has him rooted in place like a deer before the bow.

“You won’t,” Dedue says.

“It wasn’t like that,” Ashe says. He speaks low, but the others can still hear—his ears burn with it. He tugs at the collar again. “I didn’t. He never.”

“He seems nice,” Annette says.

“Yes, but.” Mercedes twists her hair in her fingers. “Some people can be very good at seeming, you know.”

“I said it wasn’t like that,” Ashe says. “You weren’t.” He rubs the back of his neck. “None if you were.”

They weren’t there. They were all born into nobility, even Mercie, every one of them but Dedue. They never had to scrape to survive. They didn’t know the weight of a boot on their neck or a choke collar at their throat, the taste of pain past the point of pleasure. They didn’t know how to recognize the coldness in Yuri’s eyes, to know where it comes from. Ashe scratches the leather of his collar and breathes hard through his nose.

“Let me see that,” Dedue says. Ashe stiffens as Dedue reaches for the collar, and Dedue pauses, waits for Ashe’s shoulders to lower before he touches the clasp. He pulls the leather free, and Ashe ties not to breathe in too deeply as he lets it fall.

“You look better without it,” Dedue says, and Ashe almost laughs. It’s almost the same thing Yuri said, back when Ashe went under a different name and Yuri wasn’t anything but an upstart with a bit of luck and a ruthless streak. They’d laughed about it, back then, buried the body at Ashe’s feet and fucked a little too hard in the back of a bar with Yuri’s hands at his neck and their pockets heavy with a dead captain’s coin. Yuri had kissed him, called him wicked, called him free.

The door opens. Another Yuri enters. Older. A little less inclined to dramatics. Smiling like a man with his fingers in too many pies, a spider at the corner of his web, a rising star at his zenith. “Thank you for waiting, friends. I hope you find the room to your liking.”

“It’s acceptable,” Dedue says. “Thank you.”

“He means it’s lovely,” Mercedes translates.

“Anything for our Ashe and his friends,” Yuri says. He sits next to Ashe and Dedue with a sigh of silk, but Ashe is pretty sure he can see the outline of a dagger belt under his robe. “I see you took off his collar. I don’t blame you. He never did take to the practice.”

“Neither do I,” Dedue says.

Ashe wonders at that. He doesn’t know much of Duscur or the traditions that submissives and dominants follow there, but he knows some cultures think collaring isn’t an elevation of status but a sort of degradation, an insult. He touches his throat, and Dedue brushes his fingers lightly at the back of Ashe’s neck.

Across the table, Ingrid sits stiff as a wooden statue, and Ashe has the sneaking suspicion that Annette and Mercedes are both holding her down under the tablecloth. He tries not to grin. Ingrid is almost as bad as Captain Dimitri when it comes to pirates, and Yuri is probably as pirate as they come.

Yuri catches his eye. He winks—Of course he noticed—and leans over to pick up his empty goblet. “Ashe,” he says. “The wine.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I can help,” Annette says, but Ashe is already up, pouring the wine and lifting the lids off the trays near the centerpiece. Ingrid relaxes a fraction at the sight of rare steak and the barest hint of a vegetable, and Dedue gives Ashe a look as he sets his plate. Ashe tilts his head in a shrug and makes to kneel again, but Dedue stops him, a hand on his shoulder.

“In Duscur, this is not how it is done,” he says. Ashe blinks slowly. “One’s submissive does not _kneel_ on the _floor_ when they eat.”

Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. If Ashe is on the floor between them, it’ll be next to impossible to whisper anything without Yuri catching on. Ashe nods, braces himself, and wraps an arm around Dedue’s shoulder so he can straddle his lap.

He tries not to think about it. He does, but Dedue isn’t a small man by any stretch of the imagination, and Ashe blushes a furious red as he settles, his lips dangerously close to Dedue’s ear.

“Smart thinking,” he whispers.

“That.” Dedue shifts slightly. “Wasn’t. What I was.”

But it’s too late, because Yuri is already laughing at something Annette said about the candles, Ingrid is stuffing her face before she can let any of her actual words escape, and Ashe is perched on Dedue’s lap with the sudden, world-shaking awareness that the bulge he can feel under his ass is one, Dedue’s cock, and two, swelling against him.

Not to mention three, definitely bigger than Dedue’s military uniform makes it out to be.

Dedue breathes in, and Ashe can feel his chest move. He reaches for his wine, and Ashe is jostled in his lap.

Dedue presses the cup to Ashe’s lips.

Yeah. This is fine.

“What brings you to the Abyss, friend?” Yuri asks Dedue, looking up at him from under long lashes.

“Our ship was—“ Annette says.

Ashe nearly chokes on his wine, and Annette fumbles to a stop. Ashe twists in Dedue’s lap, straddling him properly now, and buries his head in his neck.

“Too damaged for repairs,” he whispers.

“We ran into a storm,” Dedue says. “You probably saw the last of it, here. Our ship is better off scrapped for parts, and Ashe said he was owe—“ Dedue is cut off with a short gasp as Ashe, panicking and strapped for time, grinds down on his lap.

“Ashe said what, now?” Yuri asks, all innocence.

“Said I had a friend at port,” Ashe says. His face is probably going to burst into flames. “Someone who can put us up for the night, for the right price.”

“And what price is that, sweetness?” Yuri asks.

“That maybe—“ Ashe’s breath hitches as Dedue holds him still with one arm clamped around his back. “Maybe the Royal Navy is about to start doubling down on piracy.”

“Why would that be?” Yuri rests his head on one hand, looking far too pleased with himself. Ashe blinks hard, presses his lips together. It’s ridiculous. He shouldn’t be going under just from sitting on Dedue, but he’s so close, all Ashe has to do is raise his hands and he can touch the hard line of his jaw, his thick white hair. He clears his throat.

“Put us up for the night, and maybe we’ll tell you.”

Yuri gives Ashe a long, considering look, and Ashe meets his gaze for all of a second before he turns back to Dedue. Dedue tentatively touches his back, gentling him, and Ashe’s breath shudders against his neck.

Yuri laughs. “Alright, alright. Color me intrigued, why don’t you. I’ll have rooms set aside for you for tonight—are you three—“

“We’re together,” Annette says. Ingrid startles, mouth full, and Mercedes hides a smile behind her hand.

“Quaint. Well.” Yuri rises to his feet. “As much as I’d love to bend your ear a little longer, I unfortunately have business to attend to. Please. Make yourself at home, and someone will be by to escort you to your rooms as soon as you’re done here.” He flicks Ashe’s ear as he straightens, and Ashe huffs out a hysterical laugh against Dedue’s cheek. “We’ll talk later, sweetness.”

Ashe waits, stricken, until the door closes before he unlatches his arms from around Dedue’s neck and slides unceremoniously off his lap and onto the floor.

“Oh!” Plates rattle as Mercie stands. “Ashe, are you well?”

Ashe lies on his back on the kneeling pillow, one leg still propped on Dedue’s lap, and covers his face with both hands.

***  
“Why, though,” Felix asks, as they make their way to the appointed meeting spot. “Why should I -- you aren’t my dominant, am I supposed to. Pretend?” Felix scowls immediately, on edge even though Claude has neither confirmed nor denied this in any way. “I’m not. _Good_ at that.”

“I never would have guessed.” Claude studies him. “I don’t think you’re going to need to do anything but kneel there and look pretty. Maybe we should do something about your hair.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Felix says. He glances up at Claude. “What is it you’re doing, here? Is it something you’re going to kill me for overhearing?”

Claude stops dead in his tracks. “What -- Felix, I found you _unconscious on a dinghy_. If I wanted you dead, I could have just left you there. What would the point of doing it _now_ be?”

“That was before I was conscious.”

Claude’s surprised into an honest laugh at that, and how long has it been since _that_ happened? “You do have a point. No, I’m not going to kill you unless you try and hurt me or mine. Same with your captain.” He pauses. “And don’t do that again. I won’t kill you for it, but I’ll put you back on that dinghy.”

Felix tilts his head. “Huh.” The madman looks like he’s honestly considering it.

“Felix.”

“Fine.” Felix glances over at him. “So you want me to, what? Kneel and pretend I fucking like you?”

“I’d settle for you being quiet,” says Claude. “But I’ll take what I can get. And actually….scrap that.” Claude stops walking, takes Felix’s arm and tugs him in a little close -- no one’s around, at least that he can see, but Yuri has eyes and ears everywhere. “Yuri knows I like fiesty submissives, so you can fight me a little, if you want. Before you go down on your knees.”

This close, Claude can hear the slightest uptick of Felix’s breathing, and there’s maybe a spill of color in his pale cheeks but it’s entirely possible it’s still the sunburn. He doesn’t look any friendlier by any means, but Claude’s almost sure this is doing _something_ to him. Maybe it’s just the idea of fighting Claude. That’s fair.

“You sure you can put me there, if I fight?”

A buzz of energy washes through Claude, fierce and hot, and his hand’s in Felix’s hair before he can think it through. He pulls, hard, and smacks Felix across the face. “Yeah. I know it. And I will. Honestly, it hasn’t even been that hard.” He smiles.

Felix is panting up at the dark sky, though he looks like he’s angry about it, which, unsurprising. That seems to be his default.

Claude shakes his head and drops his hand. He feels a bit like he was baited into that, but no time to worry about it now. “Let’s go.”

Balthus is waiting by the springs, and he gives them a wave as they get closer. “Hey, you’re here. Good. Soooo, Claude.” Balthus grins over at him. He waggles his eyebrows.

Claude, whose dominant energy is already hitting striking random and hot like heat lightning, feels his teeth set on edge. He’s played with Balthus before on visits to Abyss; Balthus is a brat, physically strong, and it takes a heavy hand and some clever manipulation to get him down on his knees -- unless you’re Lysithea, apparently. “What?”

“That little lady in your party,” he says. “What’s her deal?”

“I thought she said not to call her that,” says Claude.

“She ain’t here, is she?” Balthus grins again, eyes sparkling. “C’mon, out with it, what’s her deal?”

“She’s a sailor. A dark mage. She really could end you with very little effort. Pissing her off is potentially very dangerous to your health.” Claude can see from Balthus’s delighted grin that he’s not at all deterred by that thought, and sighs.

He doesn’t say anything, though, because they’ve come up on Yuri’s house.

The first time Claude ever came here, he’d thought it a very elaborate prank. Yuri’s house is several levels of wood haphazardly stacked together, making uneven levels with outrageous staircases running up both sides. The house is set back from the beach but it’s up on stilts, and Claude knows from experience that half the doors in the place either don’t open or go to drop-offs directly to the rocks below.

Claude doesn’t know how Yuri can even live there, and he’s not entirely sure Yuri _does_ live there, at least all the time. Felix’s expression as he stares up at the house is priceless, though. Claude’s sure his reaction was the same, back when he first saw it. “I know. It’s...something.”

“It looks like two houses fell on top of each other and tried to run away,” says Felix, which. He’s not wrong.

Balthus waves them toward the door. “Just don’t, you know, try any of them except the one on the first hallway. Take that one up the side staircase, but don’t bother with the first door, it opens into a room with no floor. The second one, take that one and go to the end of the hallway. The only door you want is the second on the left, go up one more flight of stairs and then knock on the ceiling -- you remember, yeah, Claude?”

Claude has a vague memory of knocking on a trap door on the ceiling that opened to reveal the only way up to Yuri’s bedroom at the very tippy-top of the house, so he’s sure he’ll figure it out. “Yeah, got it. Thanks, Balthus. And if you want to take your life into your own hands and flirt with Lysithea, seriously, don’t call her _little_ anything. She hates that. And she really could magic your face off, so if you fuck up, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Balthus laughs with his usual loud gusto and snaps off a salute. “Will do. For that good intel, I’ll tell you that Yuri’s in a mood so if you want information you should probably give him something he wants.”

“How’s that any different than usual?” asks Claude.

Balthus winks at him. “Wasn’t _that_ good of information, Claude. I hear you’re a smart guy. Figure it out, yeah?”

Rolling his eyes, Claude turns to the haphazard stack of building materials that is somehow Yuri’s house and says, “All right, let’s go.”

“You’re fucking kidding me with this,” Felix says, as they walk up the steps and follow Balthus’s directions. “Who does something like this? If you’re that fucking paranoid, just keep a sword by the door.”

Claude climbs up the side staircase, shivering a bit -- it’s windy this close to the sea, but he pauses to take in the view. There’s a ship heading into port, but it’s too dark to see who it is. “This is just Yuri. He likes puzzles.”

They slip into the side of the house, and Claude laughs outright. It’s a long hallway with those portraits on the wall, the kind that deliberately look like you’re being watched as you go down the hallway. There are dark sconces with dusty, unlit candles and a black wreath on one of the doors.

“It looks like he let Lysithea decorate,” Claude says, shaking his head and fingering a bit of tattered black lace draped over a door.

Felix just makes a huff and heads toward the door, apparently not as charmed by Yuri’s aesthetic as Claude. By the time they get to the hallway with the trapdoor, though, Claude remembers where they are. He goes up on tiptoes and raps once on the door set into the ceiling. “It’s Claude.”

He steps back and the door opens, along with a staircase that unfolds to the floor. There’s no sign of Yuri, but Claude climbs up anyway, Felix behind him with an audible mutter of, “This is so _unnecessary_.”

Yuri’s bedroom looks exactly like what you’d expect for a pirate king turned island overlord. There’s a huge, iron, four-poster bed draped in black and purple silk, furniture that runs the gamut from rustic Faerghan to elaborate Adrestian design and everything in between. There’s even a few traditional Almyran floor pillows, the same kind as the one Claude left Dimitri kneeling on in his chains.

The moonlight is bright through the three wide windows, but there are lanterns everywhere and Yuri himself is behind a desk; a massive, solid wooden thing that Claude wouldn’t doubt came from a ship. Someone’s ship, anyway -- and as he looks closer, he thinks he sees the seal of the Royal Fodlan Navy etched on one of the legs.

The first time Claude came here, his first question had been the very obvious, “How did you get this stuff up here?”

(The answer was _Balthus_ , which was, Claude had to admit, disappointingly obvious and a bit mundane.)

“Ah, well. There you are.” Yuri rises with his usual grace and crosses the floor to Claude. “Welcome. Does your submissive wish for a pillow?”

Claude doesn’t know Felix that well, yet, but he remembers him on all fours on the deck scrubbing, the look on his face so close to _peaceful_ from all the hard work, and gives a shake of his head. “No.”

“Is he in trouble, or just a painslut like Balthus?”

“Why so interested?” Claude asks. As far as he knows, Yuri doesn’t have a collared submissive of his own. Like Claude, neither of them seem to be able to trust someone enough to keep them that close for that long. “Want to borrow him?”

“What,” Felix snarls, next to him. “I don’t think so. Fucking try it.”

Yuri’s eyes go wide. Then he laughs. “Of course. Of course when you took a submissive, it’d someone mouthy. That’s why you always liked playing with Balthus. Want me to have him come join us?”

It’s honestly a little tempting -- Balthus is a brat but he’s not angry, not like Felix, even if Claude hasn’t quite gotten over his tendency to want to get up and go for a beach run after sex. “Nah. I think he’s got a thing for one of my crew.”

  
“So I hear. Well, Claude, you’ve got my attention. What is it you’re here for?” Yuri moves forward, tilting his head, his pretty lavender hair spilling over his shoulders. He’s so deceptively pretty that you’d never know he’s deadly with a sword and one of the dirtiest fighters Claude knows.

“What do you know about curses?”

“Curses?” Yuri blinks, then smiles, slow and wicked. “You came to see me for storytime, Claude? And here I was almost sure you wanted something else.” Yuri’s look is blatant and sexual.

“I’m not saying I don’t,” Claude says, letting his eyes wander. He and Yuri are both dominants, but that doesn’t really matter much when all you’re looking for is a good time. “But first. A couple of questions.”

“Curses,” says Yuri. “You really want to ask about curses.”

“I really do.” Claude remembers Dimitri, raging and howling like a mad thing at the storm.

“Well.” Yuri crosses to an ornate chaise lounge covered in striped silk and falls on it like a heroine in one of Ignatz’s favorite gothic romances. “Come, then. Entertain me by putting that angry thing on his knees and I’ll tell you all I know about them.”

***

What.

“ _What?_ ” Felix knows what this is about. He heard the whispers on the Areadbhar, Mercedes’ insistence that she _knows_ the difference between a curse and the ghosts that come from the mind, and he doesn’t really care. Ghosts shouldn’t drive a man to slaughter. It shouldn’t make a captain send people to the stocks for speaking their fucking mind, to whip them past the point of pain, to drive his fucking ship into the ocean on some impossible quest for revenge.

“Oh, I like this one,” Yuri says. “Look at his eyes.”

“I know,” Claude says.

“You can see so much in them.” Felix shoots Yuri a glance at _that,_ and his frown softens slightly as he realizes just what has been bothering him since he walked into this ridiculous room.

Claude and Yuri have the same eyes.

Well, they don’t. They really don’t, not with Yuri’s eyes gone all dark and violet and seductive while Claude’s are a sea green with flecks of gold, but they’re both... Empty. Empty, like a hole in the ocean, dark water revealing nothing of the creatures that wait in the depths. Felix suppresses a shiver, and Yuri’s lips curve, slightly. He doesn’t smile. Not with those eyes.

Felix wonders, as Claude turns his cheek to get his attention, where they learned that. Maybe if you kill enough, it just happens. Maybe it’ll happen to him, one day, the rage and grief pushed far enough below that he can’t drag it up anymore, can’t use it to harden his soft edges, to keep him safe.

“If you want to know about curses,” Felix says, “you could have _asked._ ”

“Faerghus curses are all about seals and ice women,” Claude says, which. Well. He isn’t wrong.

“And blood,” Yuri adds. “They love their blood curses, there.”

Claude gives Felix one of those empty smiles, an echo of Yuri’s. “Help me out, here,” he says, and, just as Felix opens his mouth, slaps him hard across the face.

It isn’t like the first time, on the ship. This is more for show, and the sting of it sends a thrill through Felix that he can’t disguise. Claude’s smile broadens—He looks at the door, then back at Felix, but Felix doesn’t move. Doesn’t leave, even though he probably can, even though, according to the rules of this place, no one’s allowed to run him through on the way out. He just stands there, breathing hard, glaring at Claude.

Claude holds Felix’s chin up with one hand. “You’re underdressed, pretty thing,” he says, and Felix feels like he’s trapped between two mirrors, Yuri on one side, Claude on the other, the dominance in Claude’s voice so powerful that Felix almost forgets himself and raises his hands to his shirtfront.

Claude’s hand slides down to Felix’s throat. He holds him there, squeezes so faintly, just enough for Felix to feel the pressure of his fingers on his neck.

“Just the shirt, for now,” Claude says. Felix doesn’t fumble with the buttons. His fingers are steady, precise, and when his shirt falls away at his feet, Yuri leans around and lets out a low whistle.

“So he _is_ like Balthus,” he says, eyeing the fading pink whip marks on Felix’s back.

“It isn’t. Like that,” Felix grits out. Every time he inhales, he can feel Claude’s hand at his throat. “The boar didn’t like. People who spoke out.”

“Yeah, and you’d never do that,” Claude says. He doesn’t ask who the boar is. He probably knows. It’s impossible not to, even if the others on the Areadbhar were too dazzled by the crown.

“Bet you liked it anyways,” Yuri says. “You seem the type.”

He _hated_ it. It’s bad enough being whipped, but when he starts to go under, and the rest of them have to watch him try not to grind against the mast, achingly hard and furious—

He blinks as Claude squeezes his throat. It’s tight this time, enough for Felix to rattle out a gasp and reach for Claude’s arm, but his grip is like iron and Felix starts to slip, worn down by the long day at sea and the pain coursing through him like fire.

Claude releases him, and Felix sucks in breath with a ragged gasp. “On your knees, beautiful.”

Felix’s knees buckle under him. He isn’t graceful about it, not when he’s still panting, but Claude looks at him with a heat that makes Felix look away, fixing his gaze on the foot of Yuri’s opulent bed.

“Now, that was nice,” Yuri says.

“He is, isn’t he?” Claude leans down to scratch his nails up Felix’s back as a reward, and Felix shivers. Claude’s boots click across the floor. “So?”

“So, what? Come over here, take off that ridiculous cloak.”

“Pot, kettle, Yuri.”

Felix looks up in time to see Claude pull his cloak pin free. The cloak flutters to the ground in soft golden folds, and Claude’s shirt follows, revealing a scarred brown back and lean muscle. Yuri grabs Claude by the shoulders and drags him onto the bed, and they tangle up in each other, kissing lazily, almost sweetly. Yuri bites Claude’s neck and laughs when Claude drags at the laces of Yuri’s shirt.

“Curses, Yuri. You were saying.”

“Goddess, really? Fine.” Yuri helps Claude divest him of his shirt, and Felix’s breath hitches. He has a swordsman’s body, deceptively powerful and lithe, and when he wraps his legs around Claude’s hips, Felix can see the strength there, too, muscles bunching under silk. “What kind of curses. Cursed items? Ships?”

“People,” Claude says. “Curses that… drive them.”

“Mm,” Yuri says, as Claude sucks a mark on his pale throat. “Well. There are some. They say that lone survivors are the worst of the cursed ones. It’s why you never see a survivor of a wreck hired on again in a pirate crew, in these parts. They’re unlucky.”

Claude looks down at Yuri, his dark hair hanging in his eyes. He has his hand beneath them, moving where Felix can’t see, and Yuri arches his back and sprawls like a contented cat. “What else.”

Yuri smiles. “They say the ghosts of the dead follow them, make them wild. If they go to sea, they’ll throw themselves off the ship or kill their mates, so they’re banished to the mainland, where the sea can’t find them.” He sighs. “Yes, that’s it, there we are. Sometimes the sea finds them anyways, of course.”

Claude tugs at Yuri’s remaining clothes, leaves him gloriously naked on the plush bed. “Yeah? How?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Yuri says. Claude lifts his hips, and Yuri drags at his hair with both hands. “They find them. The ghosts of the shipwrecked. Crawl out of the sea and drag them under. Honestly, Claude, is this the—“ He grunts softly as Claude thrusts in, and Felix clenches his hands on his thighs. They’re not. Unattractive, and Felix isn’t made of stone. Yuri moves with precision, clearly chasing his own pleasure, fucking himself on Claude’s cock even as Claude starts to thrust harder, teeth bared in a grin.

“And?” he asks. “There’s an and, I can feel it.”

“The ever loving fuck, Claude. Oh, mm, do that again, where you—wrong _angle,_ you brute—“ Claude laughs as Yuri repositions him with the strength of his legs around his waist, pressing Claude down at the angle he wants. Felix tries to steady his breathing, tries to look away. Yuri’s hair fans out over the pillow and slides like silk as he’s pushed back against the bed.

“Silver,” Felix says.

Yuri laughs. “Claude, gag him, he’s ruining the dramatic _tension_ of my story.”

Claude looks over at Felix. His pupils are blown wide, and he’s still moving in Yuri, hard and deliberate. “What’s that… Felix?”

“Silver,” Felix says. “On their eyes. The haunted ones, their lovers put silver coins on their eyes or under their tongue, and the ghosts don’t take them. It’s. It’s an old story.”

Claude’s gaze isn’t quite so empty anymore. It’s sharp, heated, calculating, and Felix can only hold it for a second before he looks away.

“Oh, stop thinking about the dead for a moment and _fuck_ me,” Yuri drawls, and Claude kisses him as he obliges, making the bed groan and the curtains shiver.

Felix is painfully hard by the time Yuri curses and Claude laughs and the two of them go rolling onto their sides in the enormous bed, sweaty and sated and far too pleased with themselves. Yuri ignores Felix completely to go to the bathroom and run the tap, which makes Felix startle—He hasn’t heard running water since the last time he was in Fraldarius, months ago. Claude notices, of course, and Felix bows his head rather than see him smirking naked on the bed.

“And that’s it?” Claude asks. “That’s all you got, curse-wise?”

“Oh, Claude,” Yuri says. He swipes a hand through Felix’s hair as he walks back to the bed. “They’re all tales. Yes, you hear stories. There was a man a while back who they said called a storm down every time he went to sea, after his ship wrecked. A boy who danced with ghosts he said came from his mother’s vessel—that was a sad one.”

“Sad, how?”

“Drowned,” Yuri says. His voice is short. Hard. “And then there’s what you’re looking for. They say that’s cursed enough.”

Felix’s brows lower.

“I don’t think you’d call it cursed,” Claude says. He sounds cagey, his voice trailing off. “Blessed, maybe.”

Yuri snorts. “Anything said to bring the dead back to life is a curse, my friend.”

Felix makes a sound. He doesn’t mean to; It’s involuntary, like partying a blow in a duel, and he looks up to find them both staring at him, cold eyes watchful.

“You have an opinion?” Yuri asks.

Felix looks at Claude. He knows. He can tell, even with his face in shadow, that he suspects that Felix knows what he’s looking for.

What _Dimitri_ was looking for, before the Flame Emperor came. The one thing Felix hopes he’ll never find.

“No,” Felix says, at last, looking Claude in his blank, empty eyes. “No opinion at all.”

***  
The Black Eagle pulls into Abyss shortly before dark sets in, with a tailwind that speaks of an impending storm brewing in the distance.

Edelgard watches as her crew disembarks, standing idly by with the wind lifting her snow-white hair and notices, with a frown, the other ship nearest theirs at port.

She’s not the only one who notices.

“You are aware,” Hubert says, at her side. “That you don’t need to sleep with her simply because she’s here.”

Her mouth flattens. “I am aware that I needn’t _do_ anything, Hubert.”

Hubert bows. “I mean no offense, Lady Edelard, only that you must admit you _do_ have a tendency to --”

“Do think about how you’d like to finish that sentence, Hubert.” The entire crew of the Black Eagle is off now, headed toward Abyss and a few hours relaxation while Edelgard waits and tries to feels the magic in the wind, listens for the voices that have summoned her.

She feels nothing of it, now; just the sharp scent of saltwater, the touch of the night breeze. No insidious whispering from creatures who, when she’s finished her task, she will see turned to so much ash, scattered on the same winds by which their sick magic travels.

“Is there anything?” Hubert asks, as ever attuned to her mood.

Edelgard shakes her head, slightly. “No.” She turns to him, places a hand on his arm. “Please, I know Ferdinand is waiting for you.”

He colors just a bit -- precious, really, for her stalwart retainer to still go red at the mention of his lover. “My lady --”

“Hubert.” Her dominance is an easy thing, long-mastered and skillfully wielded. “I’ll find you when I’ve heard from them, or a sunrise regardless. Go and take this chance - there may not be many more, my friend.” She pats his arm, a small, yet meaningful, gesture of affection.

Hubert stares at her for a moment, and it’s only the ease of long familiarity that she can read the worry in his expression. With a sigh, and a realization that he’s going to walk with her whether or not she wants him to, Edelgard starts down the plank to the dock.

She gets whistled at by more than a few eager pirates, but all it takes is a glance to quell them into silence. She is descended from the oldest line in Fodlan. Her dominance is enough that a simple glare makes two of the catcallers fall, cursing, to their knees.

“You’re sure you wouldn’t prefer me to stay with you,” says Hubert, as they near the door.

“I’m quite certain I would prefer you and Ferdinand enjoy yourselves in the privacy of the inn and a bedroom, instead of finding you fucking him over the --”

“Lady Edelgard,” Hubert interrupts, but there’s the hint of a very small, wicked smile on his face -- the sense of humor he so rarely shows to anyone but her and, she supposes, Ferdinand. He bows. “That was the other way around, as it happens. Ferdinand has an inexhaustible amount of energy.”

Edelgard laughs softly. “Nevertheless. See to your own needs, Hubert. I will require your sole focus soon enough.”

A pause at the door, but there is no further magic here to guide her. How frustrating. If the demons who speak in riddles wished to bring her here, the least they could do was give her some guidance.

Instead, she has a smirking Balthus at the door, who at least seems preoccupied enough this evening to just open the blasted door instead of his usual attempts at banter, and it only takes one or two more assurances to send Hubert slipping off in the dark after Ferdinand.

She watches him go, thinking about how it was before they’d given in to their attraction. Dancing around each other, sniping like hissing cats. The crew had taken bets on how long it would take before they gave in. Petra won, as usual. She has an uncanny ability to win bets, especially about people.

Petra and Dorothea are at the bar, with one seat between them. In that seat sits a blonde woman, and even from the back Edelgard can see the set of her shoulders, tense as Dorothea and Petra turn on their charm. Edelgard imagines she will end up spread naked on a bed in the inn, gasping while Petra and Dorothea show her just how charming they really are.

Perhaps she should go join them. The Black Eagle is a tight-knit crew, many of them find ways to pass the time at sea with each other. Much to Hubert’s consternation, Edelgard long ago gave up her private quarters to her crew, preferring to sleep under the sky when the weather allowed it. She’s had enough of being trapped in the dark, in small places.

Now she sleeps in a hammock strung up under the eaves, and sometimes she has company, though more often than not, she doesn’t. But she used to fear the deep water, the cold depths unfathomable, the knowledge that to slip into it would be like it was in the cellar; trapped, clawing for the light and unable to find it. Sleeping out in the open is her own private proclamation _I have bested my fear of you_.

There is, however, one thing she has not bested. And it comes in the form of a woman of a similar height, with bright pink hair and eyes the color of rose-quartz, her breasts prominently displayed in a way that Edelgard finds both wonderful and absolutely tasteless.

“Wow, look what the cat dragged in,” says Hilda Goneril, first mate on the Failnaught and Golden Deer, sauntering up to her like she has any right to wear that smug look on her face, like Edelgard cares _anything at all_ for her; her display, her pretty little mouth or those huffy little sounds Hilda makes when she comes.

“It would seem the cat’s been busy,” says Edelgard. She feels like a cat, hackles raised, but there is no denying her eyes are lingering on Hilda’s breasts through her shirt and oh, she shouldn’t do this.

They are both dominants, which is either why sex with her is wonderful or why it’s always so fraught, Edelgard isn’t sure and perhaps she doesn’t care. She has beautiful women on her ship who are happy to go to bed with their captain when she wants them. And yet all she wants, now, is to tangle her fingers in Hilda’s hair and pull, drag her down, shove Hilda’s face between her legs.

“Busy cat, yeah, sure,” says Hilda, tossing back her drink. She smiles. They do not get along, in bed or out of it, and yet. They are like seabirds circling each other, posturing and squawking. It’s inelegant to think of it that way, but no less the truth.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Edelgard says, moving toward the bar.

“Don’t know if that’s possible, but okay, what _ever_ ,” says Hilda, sweeping the most ostentatious, obnoxious bow. “ _M’lady_.”

She should keep walking. Edelgard does not keep walking. She turns instead, moves into Hilda’s space and says, “We both know I can, and have, put you on your knees before. So do stop making a scene, would you? If you want something, _Lady Goneril_ , perhaps you ought to ask for it.”

“Oh, for -- fuck, Edelgard, knock it off.” Hilda finishes her ale, turns, and shoves the tankard at someone behind her, who takes out more out of surprise than anything. “If I wanted _polite_ I would have stayed home and married some boring noble, yawn, no thank you. I’m a _pirate_ , just like you, and isn’t the law of the sea…” she reaches out, grabs Edelgard’s hair and pulls, just like Edelgard wanted to do to her. “That if you want something, you take it?”

Edelgard slaps her.

Hilda slaps her back.

Someone cheers, wolf-whistling and yelling a, “get it, ladies!”

“Oh, shut up, you fucking wish, you loser,” Hilda shouts back, eyes still locked on Edelgard’s.

Edelgard touches her own face, lightly. Hilda never pulls her smacks. Maybe that’s why Edelgard can feel herself already growing wet. “Let go of my hair or you can fuck your hand tonight, Hilda.”

“Aw, c’mon, _Didi_ , don’t be like that.” Hilda smiles at her, all teeth, eyes sparking with heat as she drops her hand. She’s a beautiful woman, but that’s not what makes Edelgard want to drag her to bed by one of her ridiculous pigtails.

She doesn’t actually know what that thing is, to be honest, but it’s working and she should have known it would work the second she saw the Failnaught in port. “Call me that again and you’ll spend your night alone.” She pushes past Hilda and up to the bar.

There, Dorothea is in full diva mode, smiling and laughing, and Petra is doing that intense stare with the gorgeous smile, both of them leaning in close to trap their prey. The blonde woman looks both uncomfortable and intrigued, which is rather par for the course when Dorothea and Petra combine their considerable talents.

“Oh, she’s here,” Petra says, glancing up. “The pink hell demon.”

“Aw, does she mean _me_?” Hilda puts a hand on her chest -- her chest that is almost spilling out of that top of hers -- and bats her eyelashes. “Is that what you call me, babe?”

“That’s the polite version of what I call you,” says Edelgard. She gives Petra a pointed look. “Don’t let me interrupt you, Petra.”

“Edie! This is Ingrid,” Dorothea purrs. “She’s never been here before! Isn’t that darling?”

“Certainly.” Edelgard gives the woman a polite smile, who can’t quite meet her gaze. A submissive, then. Good, that should entertain them both for the evening. “Remember not to be late. We’re sailing out at sunrise.”

“Hours away,” Dorothea says, smiling her shark’s smile at poor Darling, who is likely doomed. “Petra and I have a lot to show you, though, we should go someplace more quiet, shouldn’t we, Petra?”

“Maybe you should stay here,” Petra says, to Edelgard. “Last time you were. Very angry, after you --”

“Thank you, Petra. I’m fine.”

Petra shrugs and takes her drink -- not an ale, but that Brigid whiskey that will put grown men on their ass after a shot. Petra’s likely on her third, by now. “Your burial at sea, Captain.”

Dorothea tuts. ‘“It’s funeral, Petra dear. Your _funeral_.”

Petra shrugs. “Same thing. We’re pirates. Another drink, here!” she calls, to the bartender. “You, Ingrid. What do you want?”

“Um,” says Darling -- Ingrid. “I’d rather. Not? Have that. Or anything, I should probably go --”

“Don’t be silly!” Dorothea says airily. “Unless you mean to the room, then of course, if you like. Petra can bring her whiskey.”

“Um,” says Ingrid, but she also doesn’t look _that_ bothered, mostly just overwhelmed.

Speaking of.

“I will see you in the morning,” Edelgard says to her crew, with a nod at the bartender, who hands her a key without a word.

Walking as regally as the Emperor she is, Edelgard sweeps out of the bar and toward the staircase in the back that leads to the private rooms. She makes her way down the hall, and there are sounds coming from behind the closed doors -- moans, thumping sounds, high-pitched cries. Most people don’t rent rooms here to sleep.

She opens the door and finds Hilda there, lounging on the bed with her hands behind her head and her boots on the covers. Edelgard frowns. “Did they teach you no manners in whatever backwoods part of Fodlan you come from?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know where Goneril territory is, princess,” Hilda says, as full of attitude as she always is. “You know I don’t really care what you think of me, right?”

“If you did, I might actually like you,” says Edelgard, and she’s teasing, perhaps, but she and Hilda do not spend enough time around each other for Hilda to know that.

“Ugh.” Hilda swings her legs off the bed, stands up and walks over to her. “You think you’re so much _better_ than me and yet, we’re both here, aren’t we?”

“Do you mean here, in Abyss, or in this room?” Edelgard is in the former because of dark magic and an unholy alliance with the true evil of the world, and the second because she has no self-control.

“I meant Abyss, and don’t pretend -- I saw you looking at my tits, you’re not fooling me.” Hilda puts her hands on her hips. “Are we doing this, or what? I’m not here to listen to you --”

Edelgard gives in and grabs Hilda by both her pigtails. “If you would shut up before I change my mind, then yes. It would seem we are.”

“You always say that, and you never do change your mind,” Hilda says, which, well, there’s no real argument there, is there?

Edelgard yanks her in and kisses her. Hilda tastes like the ale she was drinking, something too-sweet like cake, and a thousand bad decisions. Edelgard shoves her back toward the bed, reaching out immediately to free her breasts from her top. “I’ve things to do. We’re here for a reason. Let’s not tarry.”

“Wow, that’s _so_ hot, is this how you get people into bed with you or am I just special?”

“You’re not special, you’re available.” Edelgard shoves her onto the bed. “I told you to be quiet.”

“So what? I’m no submissive.” Hilda knees on the bed, naked from the waist up and her hair messy from Edelgard’s hands, challenge in every line of her taut, muscular body.

Heat washes over Edelgard and she reaches up to the clasp of her dress. “Strip without annoying me and I might let you come tonight.”

“I’d like to see you stop me,” Hilda says, but she makes short work of her dress, her boots, and her underwear. When her fingers go to the garter holding up her thigh-highs, Edelgard clears her throat. Hilda’s eyebrows go up.

“Leave those,” Edelgard demands, and she and Hilda are both dominants but Edelgard is an _Emperor_ and either Hilda responds to that _or_ she’s on board with leaving on the stockings, either way, all that matters is that she does it.

Edelgard strips and climbs naked on the bed, shoving Hilda on her back to straddle her, going immediately for her gorgeous, full breasts. Hilda laughs and preens under the attention, arching up, her body strong and warm beneath Edelgard’s own.

She slides her thigh between Hilda’s legs, and Hilda immediately pushes up, grinding her cunt against the muscles there. Edelgard raises her head and smirks. “You’re so wet, is that for me?”

“I guess,” Hilda says. “You’re a lot less of a bitch when you’re playing with my tits and not lecturing me.”

Edelgard smacks her, hard, on her breasts. “This all you have to intelligence to pay attention to, I suppose.”

“Your ship must ride pretty low in the water, carrying you _and_ all your self-importance,” Hilda sasses back, and Edelgard bites her on the side of her breast to hide her unwilling laugh.

“As low as that shirt of yours,” Edelgard says, and grabs her by the throat before Hilda can tell her what a terrible comeback that was, because she has to admit it wasn’t her best work.

Luckily, she has other things she can do, and do well. “Did you bring it?”

“Maaaaaybe,” Hilda sing-songs. “You could just, you know. Get your own. They even _sell_ them here.”

“I’m not going to be bothered bringing that with me every time I come here, on the off-chance I might need it. I’ll leave that you. You’re the slut,” Edelgard says, and Hilda laughs and rolls her eyes and smacks her until Edelgard leans in and kisses her, hard, grabbing Hilda’s hands and pinning them over her head. “You want me to fuck you? Convince me you’re worth my time.”

“Fuck you, I want to get laid, if you’re not gonna do it I’ll find someone else.” Hilda is panting, writhing, her stockings slick against Edelgard’s naked hips as she wraps her strong legs around Edelgard’s waist. “Goddess, I fucking hate you and your smug face. If you didn’t know how to fuck me I’d never bother speaking to you again.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Edelgard says, breathless, rocking herself against Hilda, dizzy with the hot rush of pleasure. This is so much easier than it should be. Hilda is strong, and could, if she really wanted, break Edelgard’s hold. She doesn’t really want to. And the tight grip of Hilda’s strong thighs is making Edelgard shiver as she rubs against her, and the angle isn’t quite right but if it was, if she had a little more friction, she could come like this.

She lets go of Hilda’s hands and sits back, breathing hard. Hilda stays sprawled out on the bed, lazy and gorgeous, her legs in those thigh-high stockings parted wantonly, so turned on that Edelgard can see she’s wet. She inhales sharply. “Go get your toy if you want me to use it.”

“Maybe I should make you go get it,” Hilda drawls, playing with her tits, teasing her nipples, smirking. She drops one hand down and slides it over the pink curls between her thighs, arches up into her own touch as she rubs her slit with her fingers. She raises them to her mouth and licks them, eyes hot.

Edelgard inhales sharply. She is not going to lose. _Ever_. Especially not to _Hilda_. “I said --” she moves fast, faster than Hilda can stop her, and smacks her hard between her legs. “Get. Your. Toy.”

“What -- ohhh,” Hilda moans, and that’s it, that breathy little huffy sound that Edelgard _hates_ , so much that she does it again, and again, smacking Hilda between her legs, over and over, watching the way Hilda writhes and starts being loud enough that she’s almost sure someone could hear her in the hall.

“I did say you were a slut,” Edelgard says, as if she’s not wet, as if she’s not even sure she’ll _need_ the toy at this rate. “Now everyone’s going to hear you, and know I was right.”

“Yeah, yeah, what the -- whatever, like I care, what do you think we’re here for? You have _got_ to stop acting like we’re in a fucking drawing room somewhere and live a little -- ah!”

That gets the hardest slap yet on her cunt, and then Edelgard slides two fingers into Hilda and says, “You’re so wet, how long would it take you to come? Either get your toy or I’ll let you be someone else’s problem for the night.”

“You’re such a bitch, ugh, why are you so hot, it’s seriously unfair,” Hilda grumbles, kicking at her, and Edelgard slides her fingers free -- but as Hilda swings her legs over the bed to get up, Edelgard grabs her and shoves her fingers into Hilda’s mouth, catches her own moan as Hilda’s waspish tongue licks her own taste off Edelgard’s hand.

They look at each other for a moment, and Hilda leans in close. “If I was on your ship, I’d throw myself into the sea with the sharks. Better company.” With that, she turns around to retrieve the strap she’s brought with her. Edelgard resists spanking her, only because it’s clearly what Hilda wants.

She doesn’t resist taunting her about it, though. “If you wanted a spanking, you could ask. I don’t know how your own crew doesn’t toss you overboard, honestly.”

“Mine are a lot more fun than yours,” Hilda fires back, kneeling over a sack and rummaging around.

“Get some oil,” Edelgard says.

“Why? I think you’re a stuck-up snob but for some reason you get my cunt wet as a rainstorm, you think you need it?”

“I wasn’t going to fuck your cunt, and if you keep up the backtalk --”

“Yeah, yeah, just me and my lonesome, I _know_.” Hilda rummages some more, then returns with the toy _and_ a small glass vial of oil. “Even your threats are boring.”

Oh, but they aren’t. There’s a meanness to this that Edelgard knows isn’t entirely genuine -- they spark off each other like flint, and she doesn’t doubt the sentiments expressed are genuine; Edelgard thinks she’s obnoxious and loud, and Hilda thinks _she’s_ stuck up and full of herself, though perhaps that’s the same thing.

But Edelgard knows what it is to hate someone, in the way that drags you under and makes you choke, fills you with rage so incandescent it burns white like the hottest part of a flame. This is not that. This is -- arousing, yes, but there’s a playfulness to their cruelty that Edelgard doesn’t wish to examine too closely.

She shoves Hilda on the bed, face first. “Take this like you deserve it, and I might let you come on my fingers and ride your face when I’m done.”

“Promises, promises,” Hilda mutters into the bed. She’s a beautiful woman, naked save her thigh-highs, messy hair, on all fours on the bed. Infuriating, but beautiful. “You gonna fuck me in the ass or not?”

Edelgard does. She buckles the harness and slicks up the cock, slicks her own fingers and teases at Hilda’s hole until she’s huffing those little noises into the pillow, fingers curling into the bed. As Edelgard eases the cock in, she reaches down with her other hand to stroke and rub at Hilda’s cunt, finding her clit easily enough because this is not the first time they’ve done this.

There is something she loves about this, taking Hilda like a man would take a man, controlling the press of the cock and watching it slide in and out of Hilda’s round, muscular, pretty ass with each flex of her hips.

“Harder,” Hilda bosses, but she’s pushing against Edelgard’s hand, moving so much the sheets are rustling, and sweat turns the hair on her neck damp. “I can fucking take it, don’t be a tease.”

Edelgard is quiet in bed, most of the time, but especially like this; focused on what she’s doing, lost to the rhythm of it, until her hand between Hilda’s legs is almost soaked and the pleasure is enough for Hilda to relax enough to take the whole of the cock strapped between Edelgard’s legs. Hilda throws her head back and shouts; Edelgard pulls her hips back and pushes forward, hard, breathless as Hilda moans even louder.

She can feel it when Hilda comes on her hand, the cock buried in her ass, Edelgard grinding into her with sharp little circles of her hips. Hilda shakes through it, falling apart, her cries loud and unrestrained and delicious. When she’s twitching on the bed, flat on her face and worn out from her orgasm, Edelgard draws the cock out and takes off the strap, tossing it carelessly on the floor -- let Hilda deal with it, it’s not hers -- and flipping Hilda over, shoving her shoulders down on the bed so Edelgard can climb up and straddle her face.

Hilda’s hands slide up her thighs, and Edelgard settles over her, smiling, grabbing at the headboard. Hilda’s fingers are shaking but they’re strong, curving over Edelgard’s ass to hold her steady. “Not so chatty now, are we? No matter. Run your mouth all you like, at least this way I’ll get some pleasure out of it.”

“You’re such a bitch,” Hilda says, breath hot against Edelgard’s cunt.

“And you’re an ungrateful slut. Now that we’re clear,” Edelgard says, as she starts to ride her face, “Make all the trouble you are worth it.”

She does, of course; that’s the problem, isn’t it? Hilda’s mouth is warm, wet, her tongue licking over Edelgard’s clit with perfect pressure. It doesn’t take long for it to build, but she draws it out -- she knows what Hilda’s doing, trying to get her off quickly so she can stop putting in any effort. But Edelgard takes her own pleasure, slowly, eyes half-closed as she works her hips. She’s sweaty and breathless when she finally grinds down on Hilda’s face and lets herself come, holding Hilda trapped with her thighs as she shakes apart on top of her.

She holds it a little longer than necessary. Just to teach her a lesson, perhaps.

Not that Hilda will ever learn it.

Not, apparently, that _Edelgard_ ever will.

***

Ingrid Galatea is _supposed_ to be an _officer._

She’s supposed to be a lot of things, really. She’s supposed to be a proper noble, but that never really worked out, because she took to fighting like a fish to water, a true soldier of Faerghus through and through, and no one wants a noble wife who can skin a rabbit and spear a man through the heart. She’s supposed to be a good daughter, which. Well. She tries, and she thinks she’s managed that, well enough. And she’s supposed to be a dominant, because no one can stop her when she’s put her mind to something, and that’s what dominance is, isn’t it? Focus? Self-control?

Except here she is, sneaking half naked out of a bedroom full of sleeping pirates—or two of them, anyways—with her shirt clutched to her bare chest, her hair wild, and rope marks on her wrists and ankles. She opens the door to the room she’s meant to share with Annette and Mercedes and totters in, walking slowly as though through deep water.

Mercedes sits up suddenly. She brings a hand down on a lump between her legs, which squeaks and jostles the sheets, but Ingrid barely notices. “Ingrid? Are you quite well? Did something happen?”

“Mercedes.” Ingrid sways at the door. “Do you. Do you know what it means, maybe, if you’re fairly sure you’re a dominant, but then you see a, several, women, and they’re very. They have hair, you know, and you comment on that and one of them calls you precious and you um, you do, that thing, that you do—“

“You mean you’re gay,” the lump says, in Annette’s voice. Ingrid blinks.

“Oh, Ingrid,” Mercedes says. “Come here. Annette, you may as well come out from under there.”

Ingrid takes a few unsteady steps forward. “It’s not that, though,” she says. She likes women. She’s always liked women. That isn’t an issue. “It’s just. What if they also, well, tie your legs to a bar—“

“Nice,” Annette says.

“And they make you come until you don’t think you can think anymore and one of them takes out a simply alarmingly colored phallus on a harness and then, uses it, and then you burst into tears?”

There’s a sudden silence. Annette peeks out from under the sheets. “Like. Happy tears?”

“I think so?” Ingrid says, in a high voice. “I may have, may have called one of them mistress when I…”

“Oh,” Mercedes says.

“And I did a. A great deal of begging.”

It was marvelous. She was practically sobbing the words into Petra’s cunt as Petra rode Ingrid’s face, and Dorothea had leant down while she fucked into her and kneaded Ingrid’s breasts, dragged her nails over them, called her beautiful and precious and _darling._ And when it was done, and Ingrid lay in their arms with Dorothea petting her hair and Petra teasing her with her fingers, letting Ingrid rise and fall on waves of pleasure, Ingrid had cried a second time, burying her face in Petra’s breasts.

“I think I may be a submissive,” she says, at last.

“Oh,” Mercie says again. “That’s nice.”

“Wait, was that.” Annette squints. “Were you not one before? Because you were definitely one before.”

Mercie hushes her. “It’s alright, Ingrid. Come on in and we can talk about it. Did they take care of you, after?”

Ingrid nods. “But. If it’s okay, I’d rather just.” She climbs into bed next to Mercedes, who sighs and wraps an arm around her shoulder. Ingrid lays her head just above Mercedes’ soft chest and marvels, silently, at what a great miracle a pair of breasts can be.

“Wow,” Annette says. She reaches out to take Ingrid’s hand, threading their fingers together. “Between you and Ashe and Dedue, this rescue mission sure is becoming a mess of revelations, huh?”

Ingrid nods, still drifting, and sighs as Mercedes strokes her hair. “Yes,” she says. Then, when the words finally hit her, she sits up and frowns at Annette, hair swinging over her shoulders and cheeks.

“What do you mean, Ashe and Dedue?”

***

It’s Dedue’s own fault that he can’t sleep, in the end. When he and Ashe head upstairs to find a single, generously-sized bed waiting for them, Dedue follows tradition and offers it to Ashe, who stares at him with his unnerving grey eyes before saying something about sleeping on the floor in the gunner’s deck. Dedue shuts that down soon enough—He doesn’t care what Faerghus does to their submissives, he won’t put someone on the floor unless they want it—and Ashe awkwardly climbs into bed while Dedue takes a pillow for himself.

Which means when Ashe wakes up in the late hours of the night and carefully slips out of bed, Dedue is still awake to hear his bare feet thump across the floor.

Ashe stops at the railing overlooking the common room. His grey hair is disheveled and his shirt hangs off one bony shoulder, and Dedue has to resist the urge to pull him back from the rail, drag him into his lap, feel the weight of him against his chest one more time. Ashe waves at someone down below, and there’s a chorus of shouting, too jumbled for Dedue to make out more than the sound of Ashe’s name.

Ashe salutes, and someone calls out, “Get down here, you smug bastard! I’m five down and could use the luck.”

“I wasn’t your luck then and I ain’t your luck now, Willie,” Ashe calls, and his voice sounds… rougher, somehow. Less clipped at the edges. “Learn to cheat or stop gambling against Constance. Someone catch me, I’m coming down.”

“Why are you like this?” someone else calls, but Ashe is already swinging himself over the railing. He slides down the bars and disappears before Dedue can get to his feet, and Dedue races out of the room to find Ashe in the arms of a brown-skinned woman with red hair and an unimpressed scowl. The group at the table below closes around him, and Ashe slips out of the woman’s hold to embrace a young man about his age.

Dedue takes the stairs. Ashe’s acrobatics have gathered something of a crowd, and it’s easy for Dedue to fade into the edges of it, watching as Ashe is lifted onto a table among the cards and scattered piles of coins. A man tries to hook him closer by the ankle, but he sidesteps him with a laugh.

“So what,” he says, “am I the odds, now?”

“Good odds,” one of the women at the table says.

“Can’t say I see why,” a man says. He’s leaning back against his chair, a gold cloak over one shoulder, his green eyes cold and watchful. “You’re nice enough, I guess,” he says to Ashe, “but you don’t seem very lucky to me.”

“I keep forgetting you weren’t there for it, Claude,” the red-haired woman says. “Ashe is Yuri’s luck. Or was.”

“Hopefully he still is,” a familiar voice drawls, and Dedue straightens as Yuri pushes through the crowd. He gently waves another pirate out of a chair and sits down, propping his chin on his hands. “What do you say, Ashe? An old-fashioned game of Fodlan’s Fancy, with luck on the table?”

Ashe grins. “Sure. I pick the doms, though.” The crowd erupts into chaos, but the furious protests die down when Yuri raps on the table.

“It’s the luck’s choice,” he says, in a hard voice, heavy with dominance. Ashe picks up a coin from one of the piles and dances it over his fingers. “You know the rules. There’s a nice, deep harbor out there for anyone who doesn’t.”

Silence descends over the table. Everyone watches Ashe, this unassuming, not particularly striking submissive who somehow has managed to gather every dominant eye in the room, idly twirling a coin in the air. Ashe tosses it to Claude, who catches it one-handed. The red-headed woman gets another coin, then a massive, blond-haired pirate with a shirt that strains over his chest.

“Raphael’s not a dom, though,” Claude says.

“Hey, he gave me the coin, I ain’t arguing.”

Ashe tosses the last coin to Yuri, who slips it in the pocket of his robe. “One game,” Ashe says. “First one with empty hands gets them filled again.”

Dedue bristles, pushing back against the wall as Ashe sits cross-legged in the middle of the table. The thought of people betting on Ashe, treating him as nothing better than a prize in a card game, has him clenching his fists at his sides and scowling darkly at the players seated at the table. Ashe deserves better than to be won and discarded, lent out to a stranger in a den of pirates. He’s a submissive, someone to be longed for, respected. Cherished.

Ashe gathers up the cards. He kisses one, shows it to the crowd, and slips it down the front of his shirt. The rest he deals to the players, who check their cards with varying levels of dismay. Only Claude and Yuri’s faces remain impassive.

Dedue holds his breath as Ashe strips off his shirt, tosses it carelessly behind him, and lies on his back over the table, surrounded by coins, his chosen card face-up on his chest.

“Time,” he says.

Cards fly. Two piles form on Ashe’s stomach, sliding over his bare skin, as the players discard pieces of their decks, snarl and grab new cards, and try to lay theirs down before someone else can intercept. It’s too fast for Dedue to follow, almost frantic, and Ashe laughs as the cards on his stomach go sliding off to the side.

“Fuck,” Claude says. “Yuri, you little shit.”

“Curses are the last resort of a losing man, old friend,” Yuri says, and Raphael throws down his nearly full deck of cards as Yuri holds up his empty hands. “Seems like my luck holds.”

The crowd around them stirs, bets changing hands, wolf whistles ringing through the air, shouted suggestions of what Yuri can do with his prize now that he has him. There’s an eagerness to them, Dedue realizes, an anticipation thrumming through the gathered pirates, and the hairs on his neck and arms rise as Yuri drags Ashe off the table in a rain of cards and copper coins. He kisses him hard, and the crowd rumbles like a beast, roars at the deft way Yuri spins Ashe around and bends him over the card table.

“Put on a show, sweet boy,” Yuri says, his hand fisted in Ashe’s hair. Ashe jerks as his trousers are shoved down, and a bottle of oil is tossed over the crowd and poured liberally over his bare ass. Yuri rubs it in, slides slick fingers up Ashe’s back, and leans over him to whisper in his ear.

Ashe nods.

Dedue can’t move.

Ashe presses his hands to the table as Yuri takes him, snapping his hips forward to the riotous approval of the crowd. Ashe’s cheeks are pink, and he moans raggedly as he’s thrust into the table, dislodging coins and dragging his fingers over the wood. Yuri sets a punishing pace, and Ashe’s moans rise, coming out as wretched little _ah, ahs,_ that turn long and sinful as the table rattles and shakes. Yuri slaps his thigh, and Ashe half laughs, half sobs into the table.

“Make him scream, Captain,” someone says, and Dedue feels a growl rising in his throat. Yuri slams into Ashe again, harder still, and drags him up by the hair.

When Ashe comes, it isn’t with a scream, but it’s close enough. He pants heavily as Yuri pulls out, jumps at the slap to his ass, but when Yuri gathers him off the table and into his lap, there’s a gentleness there that Dedue hasn’t seen yet, a fondness in Yuri’s cold eyes.

“Give us room for this next part,” Yuri says. He rises, drawing Ashe with him, and Dedue’s chest aches as Ashe presses a kiss to Yuri’s shoulder, soft and smiling.

Then Yuri sees him. Dedue stares into Yuri’s impassive gaze, nods slowly, and Yuri nods back with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Come,” he says. Dedue bristles again at the order, but Yuri is walking off with Ashe stumbling at his side, and Dedue has no choice but to follow.

The back room Yuri leads them to is dark, unlit, with a water basin in the corner and long padded benches along the walls. Yuri lays Ashe out on one and pats his ass.

“Nice moves,” he says. “I doubt any of them noticed you sliding my cards under your back.”

“Oldest trick in the book,” Ashe says. “Everyone knows the sub always wins.”

“If he’s a thief,” Yuri says. “Captain, if you could close the door.”

Dedue shuts the door, and Ashe sits up on his elbows as Yuri lights a candle by the basin. Ashe’s face is pale as milk, all the color drained out of him. “Dedue.”

“Ashe.” Dedue sits down on the bench next to him, and Ashe tries to draw up his knees. “Don’t move, you’ll get oil on the bench.”

“Oh my gods,” Ashe moans, but he does obey, at least, burying his face in his arms instead. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I won’t judge your choice of lovers,” Dedue says, and Yuri laughs softly, coming over with a cloth that he slides between Ashe’s now trembling legs.

“Not quite a lover,” Yuri says. “More like an old friend. And this was what you wanted, wasn’t it, Ashe? A moment alone?”

Ashe makes a strangled sound into the bench.

“Tell me now or get out, Ashe, you know how it goes.”

When Ashe turns his face, his cheeks have gone from white to red in the candlelight. “You owe me,” he says, softly.

Yuri’s face is unreadable in the dim. “You’re calling in your favor? Now?” He glances at Dedue. “For him? Roll over, dear heart.”

Ashe rolls over, clearly under, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “I’m calling it in, Yuri,” he says. “Blood debts need to be paid. You and me, we know what that means. And Dedue.”

Dedue looks down at him, but Ashe refuses to meet his eyes. “Alright,” Yuri says. He sits on Ashe’s other side. “What do you need?”

“A ship. Supplies. Cannons, if you have them. Enough for a raid.”

Yuri is silent for a long moment. “Tell me why.”

“No,” Dedue says.

“We lost someone,” Ashe says, at the same time. “With our ship.”

“The Areadbhar.”

Dedue stiffens, but Ashe just nods. Yuri lays a hand on Ashe’s neck, trailing thin, pink scratches up his throat. Ashe shivers, and Dedue only just stops himself from slapping Yuri’s hand away.

“A ship isn’t enough to repay what I owe,” Yuri says. “But I can tell you this. The man you’re looking for may yet be alive. I can’t say where—I don’t _know_ where, not for certain—“ He looks at Dedue. “But I know where he’s going. What he was looking for. The crest of flames.”

Dedue holds his breath. Ashe sits up, naked and more ghostlike than ever in the dark between them, and Yuri pushes him gently towards Dedue. He falls into him, and Dedue can feel the shudder that rolls through him as he takes him by the arm.

“And maybe, I might be able to get you on a ship that’s headed in the same direction,” Yuri says. He winks at Ashe, and his smile is wolflike and cold. “With a little luck.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm.

Claude leaves the card game -- that he was reasonably sure he had no chance of winning -- and goes to find the room they’ve been given for the night. He sent Felix on ahead earlier, thinking maybe he needed some time to himself, and he’s honestly not sure if Felix is still going to be there, or not. He hadn’t seemed very happy with Claude.

Claude finds their room and pushes the door open, shaking his head as he realizes they’ve been given an upgrade. Apparently there are perks to railing the Lord of Abyss when he’s in the mood for a good hard fuck.

Instead of one of the serviceable rooms on the main floor, with the double beds and a hearth and a bath that can be filled for a price, it’s one of the fancier suites with a built-in bath, with actual taps that bring in water from the hot springs nearby.

Felix is not in the bath, or asleep in the bed. He’s not sitting in the small sitting area, availing himself of the food laid out on the low table. He’s just standing, dressed, and staring out the window.

“Still here, I see,” says Claude, closing the door behind him.

“Where would I go?”

Claude doesn’t bother answering and instead turns his attention to the bath. It takes an age for the tub to fill, the pipes are rickety and there’s a faint scent of sulfur in the water but Claude couldn’t care less.

While he waits, Claude catches sight of something next to the bed. He picks it up, puzzled, then laughs and shows it to Felix. “You must have made an impression.”

Felix blinks wary amber eyes at him, then focuses on the thing in Claude’s hand. He scowls immediately. “That’s a muzzle.”

“It is.” Claude tosses it aside and starts stripping. “You’re more the obstinately silent type than the kind who needs to be told to shut up, though, I think.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Felix says.

They stare at each other for a moment. There’s an odd undercurrent of tension between them, and Claude says carefully, “Whatever you’re worried about, don’t be. The muzzle was a joke.” He might keep it for Dimitri, though. Yuri should know better than to expect it back.

“Like to see you try it,” Felix mutters, but something in his posture eases.  
Claude finishes with his clothes and climbs into the bath with an audible moan. “Fuck, that’s good.” He leans his head back against the edge of the tub and peers at Felix through the steam. “You should join me. This is a treat we won’t have again for a while.”

Felix gets that huffy look on his face again, nose in the air. “I’d rather not.”

Claude’s eyebrows go up. And here he’d been trying to be nice. “Any reason why?”

“I don’t think I like you.”

Claude stares at him, torn between surprise at the simple honesty of the statement and amusement. “You don’t.”

“No. There’s something wrong.” Felix waves a hand at him. “Not just with you, but. All of this. Dragging me and the boar out of the water. Coming here and asking about curses. You smile too much. I’m grateful you didn’t let me die, don’t get me wrong. But that doesn’t mean I like you, and I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

“It’s a bath, Felix,” Claude says, leaning his head back again with a sigh. “Not a collar or a marriage proposal.” He tries to keep the annoyance out of his voice, but doesn’t bother curtailing his natural dominance. He’s too tired, and therefore it comes out like an order from the Almyran crown prince rather than the captain of the Failnaught.

Felix is tired, too. Too tired to fight it, and he strips with hasty, clumsy fingers before he marches to the bath like he’s going to be executed. “I spent years serving under the boar. He’s meant to be a king. Even he can’t….”

Claude opens his eyes, staring at Felix through the steam. “Even he can’t, what?”

“Never mind.” Felix is a sailor with a history of naval battles under his belt, and it shows on the scars cutting silver across his fair skin. He has a thin line of fine black hair starting at his navel, and Claude gets a brief glimpse of his muscular thighs and calves as he climbs in the bath.

Claude can see Felix’s back in the reflection of the dark glass. It’s striped with what looks to be fading welts from a whip. Felix sinks in the water too fast for Claude to get a better look. He decides to let it go for the moment.

“Why do you call him that?” Claude asks.

Felix blinks hazily through the steam. “What?”

“Dimitri. You call him the boar.”

“He acts like a monster. You’ve seen him. “ Felix glances away, down at the water. “He wasn’t always like that. How do they do this?” He indicates the bath. “Heat the water so fast.”

It’s a clear change of subject, but Claude allows it. “Pipes, taps, running from the springs - we passed them on the way to Yuri’s house, they carry the water up here. You don’t have that where you’re from?”

“We have snow.” Felix looks like he might prefer that to the heat, at the moment. “And the baths are usually cold. But not purpose.”

“We have a distiller on the Failnaught,” Claude says. “It’s Almyran technology.” He pauses. “I gave some water to your boar. It seemed to calm him down.”

“He’s not _my_ anything,” Felix snaps, a little too quickly. “Maybe he was thirsty.”

Claude snorts. “Maybe he was. I bought him an eyepatch. Some clothes, though I suppose he could borrow Raphael’s in a pinch. Silver coins. Like you said. Maybe it’ll help.”

Felix laughs harshly. “It won’t. Nothing will. This is a farce. You should leave me here.”

“Maybe. But you realize I haven’t told anyone you’re a naval officer from the wrong side of the law, right?”

“ _Wrong_ side?” Felix asks, a little spritely. “You’re also. An officer. The other flag you have, it’s an Alliance vessel. Don’t pretend, _Duke Riegan_.”

“I’m not. But I’m not flying the Alliance’s flag, here.” Claude studies him. “Why don’t you like me? I think I’ve been more than fair with you. I hauled you out of the sea and the first thing you did was go gunning to slit your captain’s throat. I gave you clothes, a job. Brought you on shore leave to Abyss.”

“Made me watch you fuck someone,” Felix says, voice going strange.

Claude smiles. “Is that so strange? Surely you’ve heard what pirates get up to on their days off.”

“It’s not just that,” Felix says, surprising him by meeting his eyes. “It’s the way you smile. Your eyes.” Felix slumps in the water. “Nothing about you matches.”

Claude’s smile falls away like water. “We can’t all be quite so recalcitrant all the time, Felix.” _Nothing about you matches_. That’s oddly astute. Claude leans back against the bath, feeling a sharp burn of something mean, cruel, a sadism he doesn’t often indulge or acknowledge with submissives and especially not with his crew. “Do you want to get off?”

That gets Felix’s attention. His head snaps up, but his gaze settles somewhere over Claude’s shoulder. “What?”

“You heard me. You were turned on, watching me with Yuri.”

“You’re both doms. I might not like either of you, but you’re both attractive enough. I’ve been under half the day from scrubbing my blood off your decks --”

“Your fault it was there in the first place,” Claude reminds him.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t. It is what it is. It’s not like I need to do anything about it.”

Claude’s laugh is sea-brine bitter. “I think you do.”

“Good for you.”

Claude tilts his head. “I don’t know that I like you, either.”

Felix looks absurdly pleased. “That’s the first thing you’ve said I believe.”

Claude stands up, dripping water, and crosses the short distance to where Felix is sitting. They’re of a similar height, but with Felix sitting on the small bench, Claude can lean down and trap Felix there with one hand on the ledge. He tips Felix’s face up with one hand beneath his chin, then digs his fingers in, hard. “I could have you _begging_ me for it, if I wanted.”

Felix looks angry again. Good. “So, what?”

Claude’s _almost_ baited into it. Almost smacks Felix, just to see that pretty face of his turn even redder. “So? Are you trying to tell me I couldn’t?”

“No.” Felix remains obstinately quiet.

Claude’s teeth set. Usually he likes a challenge. Right now, he wishes he would have left Felix on the fucking ship. “I have half a mind to put you back on that dinghy.”

“I already told you that you should have left me there. Him, too. Both of us. You heard Yuri about lone survivors, didn’t you? How they’re bad luck?”

“Lone means _one_ , Felix. There were two of you.”

“No. You’re wrong. Dimitri Blaiddyd’s nothing but a ghost who doesn’t know he’s dead.”

A chill creeps up Claude’s spine at that, which he doesn’t like. He leans in, mouth very close to Felix’s ear, and he puts more dominance in his voice than he almost ever does, unless he’s standing at the helm of his ship and flying its true colors -- truer than the Alliance’s gold, or the Failnaught’s black flag with the red, defiant bone-skull vaguely in the shape of an ancient weapon. “Tell me you’re not hard for me _right now_ and I’ll let you get out of the bath.”

“I -- just because I don’t. Like you. It doesn’t mean -- fuck you, fine. I am,” Felix growls, unable to fight it and this is very stupid, Claude knows it, but he can’t seem to help himself. “It doesn’t mean anything. Can you not stand it when people don’t like you?”

Claude’s eyes narrow, and there’s nothing nice about his smile. “I’d have a miserable life if I couldn’t. Take your cock in your hand, go on. Do it.”

He’s still staring at Felix, but he hears the water swirl, sees the way Felix’s eyes go glassy when he gets a hand around himself. “Jerk yourself off. Just like you like it.” He still doesn’t look, because watching Felix’s face is far more interesting. He likes the way Felix’s shoulder moves as he strokes himself, the way the water splashes, Felix’s sudden, harsh breath. “You liked watching me, didn’t you? With Yuri.”

“Fuck,” Felix snarls, and he’s trying so hard not to tip his head back, show his throat. “I already _told_ you.”

“Mm. You want my hand on you? I bet you do. Go on. Do it harder.”

Felix bites his lip. The water sloshes rhythmically, and he’s starting to lift his hips up, fucking his hand. His eyes are half-closed, breathing harsh.

“Well? I asked you a question. Do you want my hand, or not?”

“Fuck you,” says Felix, jerking himself faster, trembling visibly.

“Mmm. Maybe if you earn it. Certainly not now.” Claude leans in, mouth against his ear. “Show me your throat and I’ll let you come. Don’t, and you’ll have to beg me for it. Your choice.”

“Fuck, who -- who _are_ you?” Felix gasps, and after a few tense moments, he lets his head fall back and shows Claude his throat. “I -- please --”

That he’s showing his throat _and_ begging makes the restless dominance settle a little, and Claude pulls some of it back, saying only, “go ahead,” and staying right where he is while Felix comes in the bath. He’s quiet, but his whole body shudders and it seems to go on a long time. Claude thinks it must have been a while for him. He wonders what Felix did to deserve those whippings. If he did anything at all.

“There.” Claude grabs him by the hair and pulls, and Felix blinks hazy, gold eyes up at him. “You don’t have to like me. Most people don’t, even if they say they do. But let’s remember I can make things a lot better for you, or a lot worse. Up to you which it is. And I _can_ be nice, Felix. _Very_ nice. If you deserve it.”

He gives Felix a smack on the side of his face and then climbs out of the bath, dripping wet on the floor as he pads over to the low seating area and pulling a towel around his waist. He feels both better - he needed the dominance energy release almost as much as Felix needed to come, apparently -- and somehow worse, like he’s given more away than he wants to.

_Nothing about you matches._

“Come, there’s food. Let’s eat before it gets cold. The food here is better than we’ll see for a while. And then we’re getting a few hours sleep.”

“Claude --”

“I don’t think I want to hear you talk anymore, tonight, Felix. Get out, get over here, and eat something.”

Felix joins him a few minutes later, in his pants that Claude never said he could put back on and pulling his fingers through his hair. He’s quiet but he doesn’t seem as angry, and when they sit down to eat, Felix kneels by the table instead of taking one of the other chairs, so at least Claude’s put him under.

As he lays in bed that night, he thinks about what he’s going to do with Felix. His options are simple; slit Felix’s throat while he’s asleep or let Yuri do it, either way, it’s a watery unmarked grave and a posthumous commendation from the capital in Fhirdiad. They already think Felix drowned on the Areadbhar, most likely. They probably have that ceremony in the works even now.

Or Claude can bring him back to the Failnaught, and draw him into his circle, take him away from the navy … and make him a pirate. The more dangerous option, to be sure, especially given Felix’s contentious relationship with his _former_ captain. It’s probably easier to get this over with now and just be done with it. He can do it fast. Felix won’t feel a thing.

Claude knows he’s not going to do it. When the sun rises and Felix is still asleep in a tangle of dark hair and soft snores, all he can do is hope he doesn’t live to regret it.

***

Edelgard wakes alone.

It isn’t as though she expects to find Hilda beside her. They’ve made it a point never to stay past dawn—Edelgard likes to wake all at once, through force of habit, while Hilda sprawls and moans and tries to make herself look inviting just to sleep a little longer, until Edelgard inevitably gives in and wastes half the morning dealing with her. The pillow is warm, though, and there’s a dip in the bed where Hilda must have sat for a time, lacing up her boots.

The bathroom attached to Edelgard’s quarters is shared with Petra and Dorothea’s, which explains why there’s actual soap in the dish and a bottle of hair oil that smells vaguely of cedar. There’s a garter hanging off the connecting door handle, as well, and Edelgard can see shadows flickering under the door as she checks the basin and washes her face.

A crack emerges in the mirror. It starts out as a thin line about a thumb’s length, slowly sliding up the surface. The glass whines and clicks, and another line appears with the squeak of a knife over steel.

The shadows on the other side of the door stop moving. The squeal rises, impossibly loud and grating, and Edelgard curses under her breath, grabs Dorothea’s hair brush, and slams the handle into the mirror.

Shards fall over the washroom floor, splintering at her feet, and the door flies open. Dorothea stands there, dressed in a wine-dark gown that opens at the waist to reveal practical trousers, her lips parted. “Captain.”

“It’s fine,” Edelgard says. “Close the door.”

She hisses as pain lances through her arm. There, just like in the mirror, a line of blood forms on the soft skin of her inner arm. A letter, carved by an unseen hand.

Dorothea starts forward. “Edelgard,” she says. “Your—“

“ _Close the door,_ ” Edelgard snaps, and the force of her dominance, usually so expertly masked, makes even Dorothea step back in alarm. Petra grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her into the room, and Edelgard stumbles against the wall, slamming her free hand into it. The shards on the floor rattle.

Blood magic, of course. They have more than enough of her blood, by now, enough to carve her open if they want to, however useful she may be.

The words fade as they are written, leaving new, unscarred flesh for the next word to come.

_The Crest is close. The Failnaught seeks it. You will destroy them, if they interfere._

Edelgard sloshes water over her arm. Blood trails down it, tiny rivers twisting between her fingers, pooling on the floor.

“You didn’t have to order me here to tell me this,” she says to the empty air. She crouches over her arm as another line appears, following a burn like fire, like the knives of the torturers in that dark cellar long ago, the blades that let the blood of her family, drained her dry. Colorless.

_Do this, and the first to return will be yours._

She waits. The marks on her arm fade, but the blood remains, and Edelgard snarls and scrubs the rest of it off in silence. She assumes they’re speaking of the oldest of the von Hresvelg children, the one she made the mistake of speaking to, the first night they tried to turn the blood of the imperial family into a dowsing rod for cursed magic. Her sister, the one who helped Edelgard onto the pirate ship that captured them, who tried to whisper to her when they were trapped in the hold, huddled in the dark. The one whose name Edelgard howled, that night, who left her with a reassuring smile and never returned, leaving Edelgard the eldest, the bravest, the one who had to be strong.

And if she does this, if she finds the Crest of Flames that even the greatest treasure hunters of the past three centuries couldn’t recover, they say they’ll bring her back.

Edelgard stands there a moment, back to the wall of the washroom, blood and glass at her feet, and turns to gather her things for the voyage out.

She finds Petra at the door when she’s dressed, shoulders straight, hands behind her back. Her gaze flicks to Edelgard’s arm just the once, but Edelgard is wearing her long, blood-red shirt and kid gloves, so Petra doesn’t linger.

“You have something to report,” Edelgard says. Of course she does.

“Yes, Captain. Our people. Some of them are…” She searches for the word. “The food here is terrible. They don’t clean it, like we do in Brigid, wash their hands. Six sailors are, mm.”

“Married to the privy,” Dorothea says. She’s tying off a thick braid with a ribbon over twine, and if she’s still rattled by Edelgard’s earlier display, she doesn’t show it. “We can’t risk them coming aboard like this. We’ll have to delay.”

“We can’t,” Edelgard says. “We’re officially on a schedule. Bring Hubert to me. We can make do, if we change the work roster—“

“Not after the ones we lost in battle, Captain,” Petra says.

Edelgard doesn’t need to go through the lists to know Petra’s right. There’s a reason she’s her first mate—Petra may have grown up on land, surrounded by the best academics Brigid had to offer, but she’s taken to the sea like a selkie, and Edelgard isn’t so foolish as to ignore her intuition.

“Fine,” Edelgard says. “Wait for me here. I’ll come back with our sailors.”

“She knows she can just order you to do that,” Dorothea says, as Edelgard turns from them and sweeps down the stairs.

The inn is always quiet in the morning—The denizens of the Abyss stay up until the small hours, most nights, which means there are only a few people gathered around the tables where a half-awake barmaid is serving breakfast. Or she would be, except there’s a new man in the kitchen today, grey-haired and far too cheerful for a man awake at dawn, setting down a plate of what look like spiced pastries. Yuri Leclerc, the lord of the Abyss, is half-dressed in nothing but a robe and violet trousers that match his hair, and he smiles at the strangers gathered around him like a king before his court.

He blinks up at her as Edelgard approaches, and gestures to an empty spot on the bench. “Edelgard. Isn’t this a surprise.”

“Yuri. Let’s pretend we spent an hour exchanging pleasantries and get to it,” Edelgard says. She doesn’t sit down. She drops a coin on the table instead—Imperial gold, heavy enough to pay a handful of sailors for a month and then some—and places a foot on the bench. “I need six sailors. Reliable ones. Imperial, if you can spare them.”

Yuri glances down at her foot, then back to the pastries in the center table. Half of them are already gone, and most have wound up on one plate—Edelgard raises a brow at Ingrid, the woman Dorothea and Petra had been so thoroughly charming the night before. Ingrid shoves a pastry in her mouth, seemingly in self-defense.

“Funny you should ask,” Yuri says. “I have some old friends in need of work. Friends, this is Edelgard. Captain of the Black Eagle, but you may know her better as the Flame Emperor.”

Wood squeals as Ingrid stands, fire in her eyes. The woman next to her, with long, pale yellow hair and a goddess charm hanging from a chain at her neck, smiles blandly and drags Ingrid back down by the arm. On Ingrid’s other side, a red-haired girl pushes another pastry in Ingrid’s mouth.

“So you’ve heard of me,” Edelgard says. She leans on her upraised knee, arms crossed. “But I doubt I’ve heard of you.”

“I’m sure you have,” says a tall, dark-skinned man with the white hair of Duscur. He meets Edelgard’s gaze head-on. “We are sailors of the Areadbhar. Dedue Molinaro, first mate.”

Edelgard cuts a glance at Yuri. “Really.” She thinks of Sylvain, recovering in absolute, mind-numbing boredom on her ship. “Navy sailors, here?”

“You would have conscripted them anyways,” Yuri says. He leans back on his bench. “And you know ship lore the same as I do. You owe them a debt. As survivors, they owe you their service. I can vouch for them,” he adds, when Edelgard draws back. “You know what my word means, here.”

Edelgard sighs. “Yes. I do.” She tugs her dagger free—Ingrid makes a muffled sound against her companion’s hand at that—and lays it on the table. “I’ll need you to swear, by your blood, that you’ll obey the laws of my ship. That so long as you work under me, you will not turn a hand against me. I didn’t intend to sink the Areadbhar,” she says, placing both hands on the table. She meets Dedue’s gaze. He gives nothing away, no fury, no grief. “You came for me, and I defended my own. Swear, or I’ll leave you here. You, first,” she adds, looking at Ingrid.

Ingrid looks like she would snarl if her mouth weren’t full. Edelgard watches as she looks to Dedue, first, and waits for his signal before picking up the knife. He’s their leader, then. Of course he would be. Ingrid hisses as she cuts her palm, and the woman next to her hastily covers her hand, sealing the wound.

A temporary promise, then. That’s fine. Edelgard doesn’t need them for long, in any case.

“Swear it,” Edelgard says. She puts enough dominance in her voice to make Ingrid’s gaze waver, her hand clench on the hilt of the knife.

“I swear,” Ingrid says, in a low, clear voice, “that I will serve you, within the realms of the law, and will do no harm to you so long as you do no harm to mine.”

Edelgard can’t help it. She smiles, and Ingrid presses the knife into her companion’s hand. “Good enough,” she says. “Don’t make me regret it.”

***

Claude meets up with his crew a little before noon the next day. It’s always been his opinion that making his crew get up at sunrise on R&R was grounds for mutiny; what was the point of a good, old-fashioned night of debauchery if you couldn’t sleep in after?

Hilda is sitting in the dining room, scowling over a cup of tea. She looks up at Claude and says, “Don’t.”

His eyebrows raise as he takes a seat across from her. Felix, who woke up and has said no more than three words to him, stands with his nose in the air like he can’t believe he has to associate with any of them.

Someone needs another day of climbing rigging, for sure. He can help Raphael and Leonie change the sails back to the Alliance colors when they leave, then.

“I didn’t say anything,” says Claude. “You have a good night?”

“I said _don’t_ ,” says Hilda, followed by, “yeah,” followed by, “shut the fuck up, Claude.”

He throws his hands in the air and steals a slice of fruit from her plate. “You don’t have to fuck her every time you see her, you know.” He ducks just in time to avoid her chucking a hard piece of bread at his face, then gets up and decides to let her sulk about getting laid.

“Felix, let’s go, I’ll give you something to scrub so you’re in a better mood.”

Felix huffs, and Claude remembers the card game he witnessed last night and tries to imagine Felix with the same pleased little grin as Yuri’s friend with the silver hair. Talk about two submissives who were night and day from each other.

There’s no sign of either Yuri _or_ his pretty friend, though, so Claude makes Felix stand by the entrance to the small ships store when they pass by it. He buys a few things and heads back outside, nodding toward the docks where the Failnaught waits. “I’m giving you a choice. If you want, I’ll leave you here. Let you go, figure out your own way. After all, we owe each other nothing. The law of the sea says you’d’ve done the same for me, if you found me floating out in open water, unconscious.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Felix mutters, but they both know Claude’s right.

Claude sighs. “I won’t even tell them who you’re with. Not that your kind doesn’t come around here, sometimes.”

“My _kind_?”

“Naval officers,” Claude says, since no one’s around. “I vouched for you, so it’s fine. Not that I’d hang around or announce it, but if you needed some time...you could have it.” He’s not entirely proud of his behavior last night, letting Felix get at him like that.

Felix stares off into the distance, where the Failnaught bobs gently in the water, sail snapping in the wind. “Or, what,” he says, flatly. “I go with you, warm your bed, serve you your fucking tea?”

“You go with me, and you join my crew. I take you on as a sailor, not a submissive. You cut ties with your captain and you answer to me. I don’t know what happened Captain Blaiddyd and I don’t care --” A lie, Claude intends to get to the bottom of it eventually -- “But what I want is your _loyalty_ , sailor.”

“What you want is for me to become a _pirate_ ,” says Felix.

Claude shrugs. “Not all the time. But you don’t get my secrets unless I get your loyalty, sailor. What’s it going to be? I’m casting off and it’s up to you. If you’re on board with us, you’re _with_ us.”

Felix pauses. Swallows, hard. Glances at Claude, and away. “What are you going to do with him. The Boar.”

“Captain Blaiddyd is not your concern. He’s mine. You won’t try and kill him, though.”

“Are you going to make him the same offer?” Felix asks. “He’s dangerous.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

He’s still loyal. It makes something hot burn at the back of Claude’s throat, that this angry submissive with his amber eyes and prickly personality _tried to kill Dimitri_ and is still, somehow, loyal.

“Did you think it would help him, Felix? Killing him, I mean. Less rage, more putting him out of his misery?”

“I’ll go with you,” Felix says, quickly, gaze sliding away. “But I’m not talking about him, anymore.”

“All right,” Claude says, easily enough. He can make Felix talk to him about Dimitri. Claude knows how to ingratiate himself with people. He can do it with Felix. It’ll just take some time. “Swear your loyalty to me, then.”

Felix exhales, slow and deep, then reaches into his shirt. He pulls something out and reaches around the back of his neck to unclasp it, then hands it over to Claude.

Claude glances down. It’s a symbol stamped into a piece of silver, on a simple leather thong. “Your crest?”

Felix nods. “In Faerghus, that’s how we give our loyalty to our captain.” He won’t meet Claude’s eyes.

Claude fingers it, rubs his thumb over the etched symbol. “Shouldn’t Dimitri --”

“Don’t,” Felix snaps. “I gave you my loyalty as a sailor and you told me I didn’t have to talk about it.”

Claude nods, and reaches up to tie the leather thong on which the silver charm rests around his neck. He tucks it in his shirt and says, “All right. Welcome to the Failnaught. Or, the Golden Deer, which is what the ship will be the second we’re out in open water.”

He wonders if he should tell Felix about the other name, but for a moment, he keeps that close to his chest -- like Felix’s charm. Claude reaches in and plays with it, watches Felix storm off toward the Failnaught like he’s going to war.

Claude sighs, and follows with a half-smile. Felix is probably going to be a problem. It’s equally likely that he’ll be a loyal sailor, or Claude will have to leave him on some island with a jug of water, a sword and his best wishes for survival.

Back on board, he gives his orders to ready the ship and goes to his cabin to see Dimitri. Hopefully he’s taken advantage of the bath and the clothes, the food and a good night’s rest. It would be nice if he could take those chains off at some point, though running interference between Dimitri and Felix isn’t something he has time for.

He stops as he sees a familiar tall, purple-haired figure emerge from below deck. Claude stares. “Balthus?”

Balthus gives him a sleepy grin. “Hey there, Claude.”

“Why are you on my ship?”

“Visitin’ someone. That against the rules?”

From behind him, Claude sees the slighter, smaller form of Lysithea. He looks at Blathus’ bare chest, marked up with what appears to be scratches and bites and something that looks like burns from dark magic. The sleepy, sated look on Balthus’s face.

“I can’t believe that --” he stops, catching a furious look from Lysithea and cuts off what he was going to say, which was, _that actually worked_ , because Lysithea is notorious about ignoring her own dominance instincts and he’s never known her to take someone on board for a night, _ever_. “...You have that kind of luck, Batlhus.”

Balthus gives him a weird look, Lysithea scoffs, and Claude throws his hands up in the air but can’t hide his grin. “Go back to Yuri, we’re setting sail.”

“Sure, pal.” Balthus turns and holds his arms out to Lysithea. “One more dark spikes for the road, beautiful?”

“No,” Lysithea huffs, but there’s an actual _smile_ on her face, and Claude feels a bit like he’s walked onto a different ship. “Go away, Claude.”

Claude nearly tells her that it’s _his ship_ , but opts for the path of least resistance and heads to his cabin.

And there, convincing him that he might, in fact, be not just on the wrong ship but some alternate universe entirely, he finds Dimitri; clean, dressed, his hair pulled back, sipping water and reading a book like this is _his_ cabin and _he’s_ the king.

“Claude,” Dimitri says, in a low, deep voice. “You’ve returned.”

“Looks like it,” Claude says, stepping in and closing the door behind him.

***

It’s easier with the door shut.

Dimitri closes the book in his lap—A collection of poetry, printed in Almyran on one side and painstakingly translated into Fodlan on the other—and tugs at his hair, letting a hank of it go swinging over his missing eye. The voices that rush into the room at Claude’s approach, borne by a fresh sea breeze over the muddy waters of the port, hiss and fade as the air stills between them. Other voices push against the door, but they can just as easily be the voices of Claude’s crew preparing the ship for sail.

“I suppose I’ve been making something of a nuisance of myself,” Dimitri says. It’s hard, sometimes, when the fey wind takes him, to draw himself back again. Hard to block out the voices of the dead long enough to remember that he’s no use to them starving, no use dying of infection on another man’s ship. “Your ship healer is a remarkable hand with the needle, and she allowed me the use of one of her glass eyes. She. Has a number of them,” he adds, thinking of the row of glass eyes in the little velvet box, pink and violet and green and white.

“Marianne likes to be prepared,” Claude says. He hasn’t moved. Perhaps—Ah, of course. Dimitri is a guest, an unwelcome one at that, and he’s been making use of Claude’s room all evening.

“Please,” Dimitri says. “Don’t be wary on my account.”

“Right,” Claude says. He steps a little closer, takes off his jacket. He moves to hang it on a hook, then stops, letting it fall to the floor. Dimitri eyes the untidy pile as Claude steps around the bolted table and stops before Dimitri.

“I have something for you.” Claude slips a patch out of his pocket, letting it hang from his fingers. Dimitri sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Not sure if you want it, but you keep hiding that eye.”

“I… thank you,” Dimitri says. Claude moves closer, and he shifts back slightly. “If I could… put it on myself.”

“Sure, you could.” Claude is so close, Dimitri could lean forward and press his cheek to Claude’s thigh. Claude pushes up Dimitri’s hair with one hand and fixes the patch over his glass eye. Dimitri shudders at the tickle of the strap being tied behind his head, just above the twine holding his hair back. Claude tucks Dimitri’s loose hair behind his ear. “So I’m guessing you had a good night.”

“Oh, no,” Dimitri says. Claude raises his brows. “I usually take the night shift, on the—“

The Areadbhar,

 _She killed us,_ a voice whispers, under the door. _We fell with the ship, pulled in by the tide. She killed us, and you lie here and do nothing._

Dimitri reaches for his cup of water. His fingers fumble—it nearly topples, but he raises the cool, fresh water to his lips, closes his eye. The voice dies to a whine.

A hand touches his hair. Dimitri chokes on the water, coughs hoarsely as Claude stands over him, stroking his hair slowly, like a favored pet. It’s. It’s nice. He can’t recall the last time anyone touched him this way.

No. No, he can. He does. He can remember hands in his hair, Felix’s voice, raw and savage like a wound split open, _How dare you, how dare you, give him back_ —the sound of Felix’s body hitting the deck.

A whip in his fingers. Someone else’s voice in his throat.

“Dimitri.” Claude’s voice is calm. Level. He pulls Dimitri’s head up, looks down at him with eyes that give away nothing. “I got you something else, but you’ll have to do something for me, first.”

Dimitri’s mouth twists. “You are not the one I serve.”

“I know that. But it’ll settle you, serving me,” he says. “Won’t it?” He pulls away, leaving Dimitri chasing the warmth of his hand, and pulls out his chair. He throws himself into it, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Take off my boots, and tell me what you know about curses.”

Dimitri looks down at the worn leather of Claude’s boots. “I don’t know anything about curses,” he says.

“You don’t? Strange. Thought Faerghus sailors loved their stories.” Claude snaps his fingers, and Dimitri carefully slides off the pillows at his back and to his knees. He starts to unlace Claude’s left boot, breathing in the scent of old boot polish and the dirt of the street, and something in that does steady him. He tugs the boot free, and Claude—Claude rests his foot on the back of Dimitri’s neck, careful not to put pressure on his healing shoulder. Dimitri glances up at him, ready to shake him off, and freezes.

Claude has a crest coin in his hand. It’s silver, stamped with a crest Dimitri has run his own thumb over too many times to count—Fraldarius’ crest. Felix’s crest. The coin he used to press to his forehead on the nights the ghosts’ demands came too thick and too fierce to bear, the one he kissed when Felix came to him, those first few weeks. Before the sea wind rose and the waves rolled with the shadows of the dead.

Felix’s crest coin flickers in Claude’s hand, and Claude tilts his head and gives Dimitri a curious look.

“Speak up,” he orders.

“Felix has sworn to you,” Dimitri says. Claude shrugs. “That is… he is a soldier of Faerghus.”

“Or he was,” Claude says. “For now, he’s one of my men.”

“There was a time when he was one of mine,” Dimitri says, pulling the other boot free, and Claude rests his foot on Dimitri’s shoulder.

“But not for a while,” Claude says.

The coin shines between his fingers.

“No,” Dimitri says, in a soft voice. “Not for a while.”

Claude tucks the coin back under his shirt, and Dimitri sighs. “Put those away and bring me some water. Don’t stand,” he says, when Dimitri moves to rise.

The cups are close enough to reach, but the chains at Dimitri’s wrists pull taut, and the bite of them makes it easier, almost, to serve this strange man who fished him out of the sea and stole Felix from him. The links at his feet slide across the floor as he brings the cup to Claude, who smiles faintly.

“Good man,” he says. Dimitri blinks. It’s simple praise for a woefully simple task, but Dimitri can still feel himself slipping, and he fixes his gaze on the floor.

Claude gives him easy tasks. Fetching new boots. Hanging up his jacket. Rearranging the pillows. It’s amusing, at first—as though Dimitri is watching a new dominant discover that service submissives exist, coming up with arbitrary orders to obey. But with every task, he tells Dimitri what a good job he’s doing, what a good submissive he is, until Dimitri is drifting, almost under for the first time in years. When Claude places his booted foot over Dimitri’s borrowed trousers and murmurs in assent at the way his knees part, Dimitri just kneels there, head bowed.

“They never praise you, do they?” Claude asks. “The ones you serve.”

Dimitri laughs. It comes out hollow, bitter. “No,” he says. “Quite the opposite.”

“It’s a shame,” Claude says. “You _should_ be praised, when you earn it. How many do you have to serve?”

Claude gently slides his foot along the line of Dimitri’s cock, and he shivers. “One hundred and eighty-six,” he says, without thinking.

“What.”

“One hundred and eighty-six.” Dimitri winces as Claude presses down, and tries not to grind against his boot.

“And they all make demands of you,” Claude says, in a strangely quiet voice. “They’re the ones you’re speaking to, when you aren’t… like this.”

“I owe it to them,” Dimitri whispers.

Claude is silent for a moment. Dimitri can feel the heat of his gaze as Claude slowly, idly moves his boot, teasing hissing breaths out of him, making Dimitri clench his fists to keep from moving.

“And now you owe me,” Claude says, “for keeping you alive. Would you serve me, the way you serve them, to repay that debt?”

Dimitri lifts his gaze, and something in his eye must unsettle Claude, because he can see fear there, stirring in the depths. “I did not ask this of you,” he says.

“No, but you have it. You know the lore. I could conscript you now without sweetening the deal.” He trails up the line of Dimitri’s cock, waits there, the pressure feather-light. “But with me, at least, you’ll be given what you’re owed. For a time, until the debt is paid. Then you can go back to your ghosts.”

Dimitri’s breath catches. Beyond the door, the dead whisper, begging, cajoling, cursing Dimitri for lying in luxury while their bones line the sea floor. But Claude is here, in front of him, and for the first time in years, Dimitri doesn’t feel like he is drowning.

“Yes,” he says. “For now.”

Claude glances at the door, then back to Dimitri, his brows lowered. He removes his foot. “Show me, then,” he says. “Show me how good you can be.”

Dimitri takes a breath. This is dangerous. He’s surprised the door isn’t rattling with the force of the voices pushing against it. Still, Claude called him _good,_ said he could be worthy of something, and it’s been… been so long, since he’s felt that. Since anyone has seen him worthy of anything. He eases forward and looks up at Claude, unable to hide the desperation in his eye.

“Hands behind your back,” Claude says, and Dimitri obliges, clasping the chains that hang from his shackles. They jingle as he moves, and the sound almost dampens the voices calling through the crack in the door as Dimitri leans down to take the button of Claude’s trousers in his mouth.

He looks up at Claude, and Claude raises a hand to his face and drags it down.

“Fuck,” Claude whispers.

Dimitri tries not to smile. He undoes Claude’s trousers with his teeth, but Claude’s patience must be running thin, because he pushes them down and takes himself in hand, stroking dry over his already hard length. Dimitri looks up at him again, beseeching, and Claude curses and grabs Dimitri’s head by the hair, guides him to it.

It’s been some time since Dimitri has done this, but he remembers enough, and the weight of Claude’s cock on his tongue is familiar, grounding. He settles into an easy rhythm, slow and indulgent, the way he would with a lover, and Claude’s thighs tense as his cock swells and Dimitri can taste him, feel the grip of his hand tighten in Dimitri’s hair.

“Holy fuck, what you do to me,” Claude says. “What the fuck. Yes, you’re doing so good, take it deeper.” He pushes Dimitri down, and Dimitri gags as his throat constricts around Claude’s cock. Saliva pools under his tongue, slides messy along Claude’s cock as he’s pulled back, as Claude starts to move his hips, thrusting shallowly into him. Dimitri moans, and Claude tugs at his hair, thighs closing around Dimitri’s shoulders. He lifts a foot over Dimitri’s back, digging in, pulling him close, and Dimitri takes him to the hilt as Claude comes with a muffled curse.

“Yes, alright,” Claude says, pulling Dimitri back for air. They’re both panting, Claude’s glassy eyes clear and so full of want that Dimitri has to stop and stare. He’s a different man like this, almost overwhelmed by an emotion Dimitri can’t place, the careful mask slipping as he catches his breath. Then he presses Dimitri’s face to his thigh and grinds his boot over Dimitri’s cock, relentless.

“Come for me, beautiful,” he gasps, and Dimitri groans as he does, hips jerking, fingers clenched around his chains. He kneels there a moment, breathing hard, and Claude runs his fingers through his hair.

“I have a gift for you,” Claude says, after a minute. “Keep them on you while you’re in my service. Always.”

Dimitri frowns faintly as Claude slips two heavy silver coins in his palm, one by one. He examines them, runs his thumb over the smooth edges. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to,” Claude says. “Just keep them with you. Swear it.”

Dimitri slips the coins into his pocket, where they press against his thigh, warm from Claude’s hand. “I swear,” he says.

“Good.” Claude drags his hands through his hair again, utterly ruining the tie, and sighs heavily. “Good. Maybe that will be enough.”

***

The Black Eagle swarms with sailors like an upturned anthill by the time Ashe reaches the gangplank. He stands there for a moment, listening to a familiar song roll over the deck, the same one he and the gunners sang in the dark of the Areadbhar to keep time, and he can taste the soot on his tongue, feel the tremor of the ship as it started taking water. A cold wind blows over the docks, and the sails crack as they’re unfurled.

A warm hand touches the back of his neck, and Ashe looks up to find Dedue there, wearing a simple white shirt and pale trousers. Only his earrings remain from his old uniform, a flash of gold that catches the sun.

“It is hard,” Dedue says, at last. “Serving the enemy.”

“I. Yes.” He searches Dedue’s eyes. Wonders what he was, before the Faerghus turned their guns on the Duscuran people. How he’d learned to be so still and so quiet when the sailors of the Areadbhar avoided him in their off hours, how even when Captain Dimitri remembered, when he tracked down the whispers that wound through the ship like a lion on the hunt, Dedue would calmly send the sailors in question back to work. “It is.”

“The others, they won’t know,” Dedue says. He squeezes the back of Ashe’s neck, so lightly that Ashe can’t tell if he even knows he’s doing it. “You do.”

“Has—What has Yuri told you?” Ashe swallows around a dry throat.

“Nothing,” Dedue says. “You learn to recognize it, in other people. Come.”

“Right,” Ashe says, and starts forward, anchored by the weight of Dedue’s hand on his neck, onto the deck of the Black Eagle.

Where they’re immediately waylaid by a young man with orders for one of the new sailors, rocking on his heels before them with a full-toothed grin. He’s rather short for his age, with a disastrously exaggerated version of Ashe’s own haircut, except it’s pale blue and shaved up the sides. His name’s Caspar, he says, as he pulls Ashe out of Dedue’s grip and across the deck, and he’s covered in tattoos, which range from an amorphous blob he swears is a lemon to a dragon that curls around his neck like a collar.

“It shows I don’t belong to anyone, right,” Caspar says, as he throws Ashe an armful of rope. “I got Linhardt to do it—He’s the skinny guy down below, sleeps a lot, probably does dark rituals when no one’s looking. But he’s harmless, I swear. Nobody’s had their leg cut off once since he joined up. No carpenters in the sickbay, that’s what the Captain says.”

“Sure,” Ashe says, numbly, tying the rope to secure a sail that goes flapping and twisting behind them.

“Hey, you’re pretty good at that. What ship were you on before?” Caspar secures his own rope while Dedue, taking a place behind Ashe, pulls his taut.

“Captain Leclerc’s,” Ashe says. “Captain Rowe before that.”

Caspar whistles low. “Fuck me twice. The Captain Rowe? The Count?”

Ashe shrugs. “Not for long. And he wasn’t as tough as they say, really.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Caspar sputters out a laugh. “I heard he flayed a man alive. Like, you could see his bones, right, and he was still walking around afterwards, so the Count took his fingers and—“

“Your knot’s coming undone,” Dedue says, and Caspar curses darkly, fumbling with the rope. “We’ll finish up our side.”

“Right, yeah, fuck,” Caspar says, and when Ashe reaches for the line to secure the sail, Dedue wraps a hand around his. His heart leaps to his throat.

“Steady, sailor,” Dedue says. His voice is low in Ashe’s ear. They pull the line together, Ashe braced on Dedue’s back. “Look around. Tell me what you see. Where are our people?”

Above them, Ingrid climbs the rigging, followed by a dark-haired woman in what looks like a gown with trousers, or maybe a strange new style of cape, and Annette anxiously stands under the watchful gaze of a pale, gaunt fellow with black hair and sunken eyes. She casts a spell that lifts her off her feet, and wind swells in the sails for a moment, just enough for them to billow and strain against the lines. The man frowns and points her towards a woman with violet hair standing by the wheel. Mercedes is probably below, with that odd not-a-carpenter Caspar spoke of.

Ashe points them out to Dedue, and Dedue stays with him, a steadying presence at his back, until the sour tang of adrenaline is gone and Ashe can grip the rope without feeling like it’s _his_ bones being flayed open, exposed to the salt air. His voice strengthens, and he nods to Mercedes, who emerges from one of the trap doors with a man at her heels to bring a glass vial of something pale blue to Captain Edelgard.

“There’s Mercedes,” Ashe says. “With Sylvain, I think. And.”

He stops.

So does Dedue.

Sylvain Jose Gautier holds onto Mercedes’ hand as though he’s afraid he’ll tumble into the sky if he lets go, and when he turns to look back over the ship, there’s a low cry as Ingrid goes sliding down the rigging. The woman in the dress casts a spell to cushion her fall, but Ingrid doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps running until she collides with Sylvain, dragging him into her arms. He stands there a moment, stunned, before he tentatively hugs her back.

Ashe can feel the thump of Dedue’s heart through his thin shirt. Dedue and Sylvain have always been friends, in a way, with Sylvain peeling away from whatever new fling he’s courting to trail after Dedue and try and get him to laugh. Sylvain even got in a fight over him once, when a new sailor refused to take orders from a Duscuran officer, and Captain Dimitri actually roused himself from his restless pacing to intervene.

“You can go to him,” Ashe says. “If you want.”

“Best not to leave our duties yet,” Dedue says, and sure enough, there’s a stinging crack of a palm, the thud of Ingrid hitting the deck on her knees, and Ingrid’s furious, red-faced attempt to scramble to her feet again before anyone sees her submitting to a pirate. Edelgard gets a hand in her hair and another in Sylvain’s, and Dedue frowns, slightly.

“She’s being nice,” Ashe says. “For most pirates, that’s a flogging. Not the fun kind, either.”

Edelgard releases them both, and Ashe can feel Dedue sigh as Ingrid stalks off like a wounded cat, pushing past Mercedes without a word.

It doesn’t take long for the Black Eagle to set sail. They clear the harbor before noon, with a steady breeze nudged gently by Annette’s weather magic, and a number of the sailors slow to watch her as she sits on the rail next to the sailor at the wheel, magic stirring her red hair and whipping her mage’s cloak into a frenzy. Ashe is called down below to the cook’s quarters when he makes the mistake of admitting he used to do chef’s duties on his old ship, sometimes, and Edelgard pulls Dedue aside, walking with him along the perimeter of the deck.

Imperial ships work in shifts, far more organized than the haphazard chaos of the Areadbhar, where Dimitri didn’t quite care and half the sailors didn’t pay any mind to Dedue’s orders unless he put the weight of his dominance into it. They find an unused corner of one of the decks to drag Sylvain into, where he leans against Mercedes and props his feet up on Ingrid’s knees, basking in the attention.

“It’s not so bad, really,” he says, sipping the thin tea that an actual Adrestian noble brought them, arranged in the lid of a bucket like cocktails at a naval function. “And I think… she didn’t like it, how the battle went.”

“Of course,” Ingrid says. “Most pirates want to keep the ships they attack, not sink them.”

Sylvain cuts her a wary glance, but says nothing.

“And you didn’t see Dimitri,” Dedue says. His voice is level, but Ashe is close enough to notice the way his fingers clench, the grim set of his jaw.

“No.” Sylvain grimaces. “Sorry.”

Dedue gets up. He makes his way across the deck in sure, steady strides, and Sylvain sighs and drags a hand through his messy hair. When Ashe stands to follow, Annette shakes her head, but it’s not like Ashe isn’t used to handling restless dominants. The Abyss is practically teeming with them.

He finds Dedue standing over the railing, watching the dark waves roll past. Ashe carefully eases his arms onto the rail.

“Leave me be.” Dedue’s voice is low, quiet.

“It’s okay to be angry,” Ashe says. Dedue glances at him, then away, back to the water. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“A man of Duscur can’t afford to let his emotions show,” Dedue says. “Any lapse will be excuse enough.”

Ashe can’t say a thing to _that._ So he just stays there, leaning on the rail, while Dedue breathes slowly and his eyes go sharp and hot, burning with an emotion Ashe has only seen once before, when the Areadbhar fell.

“You know.” Ashe breathes out in a gusty sigh. “You can always. I mean. I’m here. If you need someone to. If you need to get it out.”

Dimitri turns to him, then, and there’s something dangerous in the way his hands grip the rail, the low tone of his voice. “Get it _out?_ ”

Fuck. Ashe straightens to attention. “Just. Offering to help.”

“Offering to have me _use_ you,” Dedue says, and Ashe wants to say _Yes, actually, please, that’s the point,_ except there’s something of a growl to Dedue’s voice and all Ashe can think is that he’s fucked up somehow, disappointed him, edged in where he isn’t wanted. He drops to his knees, and one of the sailors passing by on the way to her shift slows, watching them warily out of the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry,” Ashe says. He stares at his knees. “I don’t… tell me what I did wrong, and I won’t do it again.”

“I don’t want to see it,” Dedue says, at last, and Ashe sucks in a breath, bows over his knees. Goddess, did he read him wrong. He’d always been disgusted with him, from the start, ever since Ashe revealed who he used to be. Maybe he can see it on him. Sometimes, Ashe can still feel the pressure of the Count’s choke collar on his throat, the prick of nails in his back. He can still feel the cold wet earth under his bare feet as he crouched naked over the Count’s dead body, hear the sound of Yuri’s startled laughter, his own rising over the quiet docks. Maybe Dedue sees it, too. Knows who he is.

“I don’t want to treat you as less than you are,” Dedue says, and Ashe bends his head at the touch of a hand over his hair, the slide of Dedue’s shadow on the deck.

“Maybe I’m exactly what you think I am, though,” Ashe says. “A criminal, a, a whore—“

“Ashe.” Dedue pushes him upright, and Ashe tries to sink down again, unable to meet his gaze. His grip is firm, holding him steady. “You are not what you have done. You are a submissive. Clever. Quick on your feet. A light in dark places.”

Ashe opens his mouth to argue, and Dedue, still crouching on his ankles, slides a thumb over his tongue.

“They say in Duscur that the first submissive came from the sun,” Dedue says. He holds Ashe’s mouth open, watches him breathe. “Like the earth, a dominant’s world revolves around their submissive. If we try and put out their light, we’re dooming ourselves.”

Ashe wants to tell him that it’s the other way around, that everyone in Faerghus knows the sun revolves around the earth, which is held in place by the goddess, but Dedue is looking at him like he believes it, like it was _Ashe_ who fell from the sky.

“There is no shame,” Dedue says, pulling his thumb free to hold Ashe’s chin, “in... Offering. No shame in that. But I would have you know the value of what you’ve laid at my feet.”

“Oh,” Ashe says. His voice sounds hoarse in his own ears as Dedue, still watching him like he’s something precious that could flicker out at any moment, lifts Ashe’s hand and presses a kiss to his wrist. “Oh, okay.”

***

Claude stands with his hands on the railing, staring out at the water. The breeze is picking up, catching the ends of the scarf he’s tied around his head to try and control his hair. He’s not sure what to think about any of this.

“You could ask the rest of us, first,” Lorenz says, his face pinched. “Before you conscript. _Naval officers_ onto our ship, Claude.”

Claude turns to look at Lorenz. “He was already on our ship, Lorenz. He was when we pulled him out of the _sea_. And shouldn’t you be more upset about the man in chains than the one who’s right now doing actual work?”

“Oh, would you stop, I’m not _heartless_ ,” Lorenz huffs, which is true. For all they clash on occasion, and for all Claude thinks Lorenz is naive to the ways of the world, Claude knows that Lorenz means well for all he can be insufferable on occasion. “There’s a difference between rescuing a sailor and conscripting one.”

“I didn’t. He joined of his own free will.” Claude shows him the token around his neck. “You know what that means.” When someone swears loyalty to a pirate crew, you have to take them at their word if you want the crew to function.

“I do, but I maintain that we should be a bit more selective,” Lorenz says, as if piracy is akin to taking high tea in Derdriu during the height of the season. “Also, Claude, you might have noticed but he is always in a _dreadful_ mood.”

Well, that’s no lie.

Before Claude can assure Lorenz that Felix is just like that, Leonie drops down like a cat from the rigging and says with a frown, “Feel that wind? Storm’s coming.”

Claude looks up at the sky, frowning at the storm clouds gathering low on the horizon. “Those weren’t there before, were they?” Claude can be reckless but he certainly doesn’t sail his ship into a storm if they don’t have to.

“No.” This from Lysithea. “Can you feel that?” She tilts her head back, and her hair blows and her violet eyes flash, going vacant as she holds her hands out at her sides.

Claude smiles. She’s such a little drama queen. He mimics her pose, which makes Leonie laugh and Lorenz flash a grin before he can help it. “Tell me what I should be feeling, Oh Wise Oracle of the Seven Seas.”

“My boot on your ass, if there was any sense of justice in the world,” Lysithea says, pertly. “Seriously, can’t you tell?”

“No, Lysithea is correct,” says Lorenz, who is passable with magic even though he’s nowhere near Lysithea’s level. Claude opens his eyes to see them exchanging glances. “This is something other than natural.”

They all turn to the sky, and Claude doesn’t need magic the longer they watch it gather; there’s a cold bright flash of white, and the boom of thunder echoes soon after. The wind picks up, and Claude exchanges a glance with Lorenz.

Storms move quickly out on the open sea. But they’re not that far from Abyss, and they don’t move _this_ fast.

“Should we head back, then, to port at Abyss?” Leonie asks, practical as ever.

Claude shakes his head. “We’d have to sail into it -- I don’t like whatever it is, and I think we should at least try and put some distance between us and magic storm clouds.”

“It’s not magic,” Lysithea says, in a grave voice that Claude imagines her practicing in her quarters. “But it’s not natural, either.”

“Mm. I’ll speak with Ignatz,” Lorenz says. “Claude, you might want to tell the crew to batten down the hatches.”

Just as he says that, clouds begin to roil and pulse, spreading out over the sky like a flower blooming unnaturally fast. Ice forms on his spine and his arms prickle with goosebumps. “Right.” He gives a sharp whistle and vaults off the deck.

“Not real sure what’s up with this,” Raphael calls, loudly, from where he’s wrestling with the wheel. “But we should probably -- wait. That a ship I see? Starboard?”

“What?” The wind is loud now, and Claude’s been on ships his whole life and somehow this is like one of those storms that take out whole fleets; the sort they make songs about. The sort that makes ghosts. “Where?”

Claude grabs at the tails of his scarf, whipping around his head and nearly hitting him in the eyes.

“Ignatz said we should make for Luna,” Hilda calls from the deck, forcing her hat to stay on her head. “Claude, what is this?”

“I don’t know,” Claude shouts back. He sees Felix on the rigging and his heart nearly stops as he watches him scurry down the ropes and head straight for Claude. “Felix, you should --”

“Where’s Dimitri?”

“I don’t really have time for your --”

“Captain,” Felix says, and his eyes look wild as it starts to rain. “ _Where is Dimitri._ ”

“In my quarters, safer than we are out here,” Claude shouts, pulling the sash out of his hair -- it’s just getting in his way, now, and the rain is coming down hard and brutal like a lash. Claude remembers the lash marks on Felix’s back and reaches out, grabbing Felix by the arm. “Why? Why do you want to know where Dimitri is?”

“There’s -- do we know anyone with a -- no one even sails that ship anymore!” Raphael shouts, hair plastered to his face. “You guys can see this, right?”

The ship groans, canting sharply downward as it’s tossed on the sudden waves.

“Claude, now is not the time to talk about the brawny sailor chained up in your quarters!” Hilda shouts.

“Cap’n I think there’s something under our boat!” Leonie calls. “I think I. See it swimming?”

Felix grabs him, hard, on the arm. Around them the wind sounds like something screaming, broken. “This is because of him,” he hisses, looking like a sodden, angry cat. “This is his - his madness, this is what happened when --”

“Go below,” Claude snaps, pointing. “ _Now_.” Claude turns and shouts at Raphael, “Signal the other ship if you can.”

“Wouldn’t -- I wouldn’t do that, actually,” Raphael calls down from the wheelhouse. “It doesn’t have any sails.”

“Then how --”

Lysithea screams. Claude nearly falls over as he rushes to find the sound, his mind alight with terrible images of her lifted off her feet by a wave, swallowed by the angry froth of the sea, sucked down in the cold dark. It’s a struggle now to walk against the wind, which is somewhere everywhere at once, tossing the Failnaught up and down like a child’s toy.

Lysithea’s not drowning, but she’s shrieking like a banshee and pointing at something off the stern. Claude, who could maybe drown her _himself_ for making him think she was drowning, finally catches sight of what she’s pointing at.

The other ship. Claude gets only a few glances of it as it slips and glides out of the black mass of clouds that’s overtaken the sky, and just as Raphael said, it has no mast sail. It has no sail at all. Just weathered gray wood that rise like bones from its hull.

“That,” Lysithea shouts, in a voice six octaves higher than her usual and directly in Claude’s ear, managing -- somehow -- to be even louder than the storm. “Is a --”

Claude slaps his hand over her mouth. He comes from an unbroken line of Almyran pirates and kings, and he is not going to let her say it out loud. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”

She bites him like an angry cat and kicks him in the knee, magic sparking around her, turning the furious rain violet like her eyes. “But -- _look_.”

Claude can’t help it. He does, for the half second it takes him to remember every single thing his father told him about this, about the storms that rise up not from the sky but the sea itself, the depths reaching out to take what it wants from those who use the power of the sky to sail upon its waters.

_Khalid, when you see a ship with no sail, you see a ship with no soul. Speak not of it, look not at it, and tell your sailors to do the same. Else yours will join the ranks of the loneliest fleet of all, and the joy in your blood will leech into nothing, turning your bones as gray as the wood on her decks._

The ship peeking out of the storm has rotted, gray wood and no sails, no crew that Claude can see. And the sight of it is somewhere worse than the storm itself.

That is, until he thinks he sees something under the water. Something that looks like it has scales.

He shouts an order and drags Lysithea down below deck, though she’s practically dragging _him_ in her haste to get away from the gho-- the other ship. Being indoors is better without the constant rain lashing his face but it’s chilly and also the movement feels worse, the kind of sick nausea that builds slow and turns over like when you’ve had too much to drink and your bed feels like it’s moving without permission.

Lysithea presses her hands over her eyes, dripping onto the floors. “Not real, not real, not real.”

“Get somewhere and strap in,” Claude says, pushing her. “There was nothing. No ship. Just a - a storm. A mirage, you know, those are a - a thing.”

“Those are a thing in the desert,” says Lysithea, weakly.

“Go,” Claude says, and the ship lurches and he has to stop her from falling.

There’s shouting above. Claude’s thought about dying at sea off and on a few times over the years, but there’s never been a storm he couldn’t sail. His jaw sets and he whirls, turning to head back up to help. If this is it, if the time for him to join his ancestors has come, to choke gasping on the seawater that’s given him life -- fuck it, it can wait. He won’t go down without a fight.

But then he sees Failnaught.

His ship’s named after an old family relic his mother gave him and that now hangs over the door to his cabin; a bow with a naked red stone that is now pulsing and throbbing like a heart. Before he can figure out what that means, Felix pushes past him and throws open the door. “Boar!”

There’s a roar from inside. Claude hesitates, because he’s got a lot going on right now and maybe he doesn’t care what Felix does but then he remembered the way Dimitri looked calm and quiet under his head, the clear eye, the little gasp of pleasure as he came under Claude’s touch, kept safe in his dominance.

He goes into the room, determined to stop Felix from whatever he plans on doing -- and sees Dimitri in the corner, wreathed like some ancient god in chains, shaking them and howling like a monster.

“Boar!” Felix shouts, striding forward. “This is your fault! I won’t let you do this again!”

Again?

Dimitri looks nothing like the quiet man who was reading a book when Claude returned from Abyss. He’s barely paying any attention, muttering under his breath, and suddenly his head whips toward Claude, too fast, and his mouth opens too wide and voices that aren’t his spill forth like broken, discordant bells.

“What the actual fuck,” Claude says, and it takes all the courage in his body and a good dose of bravado to not back up and get the fuck out.

“These chains will not hold him,” Dimitri -- or whatever is speaking through him -- says, a gurgling, sick noise like the bells are broken and also underwater and the force of this -- this _thing’s_ presence makes Claude’s head ache.

Dimitri’s head whips around. He’s fighting it, Claude realizes. That’s why he’s rattling his chains, why he’s howling.

It’s the curse. It’s _real_.

The boat groans again. Something -- many somethings -- fall from Claude’s shelves. Felix nearly topples into him but rights himself, pushing sodden inky black hair out of his face and glaring at Claude with eyes that burn like the sun. “I told you -- I _told you_ \--”

“He’s fighting it,” Claude whispers, bracing against a post in the middle of the cabin and grabbing Felix by his soaked shirt. “See?”

“Fucking good for him, it won’t work, it -- it won’t work,” Felix mutters, and Claude can hear it, now, in his voice. Heartbreak.

“Last time, the water -- it’s raining, maybe we could get him upstairs --” The boat climbs and falls, climbs and falls, and once lilts to the side so much that Claude is convinced they’re done for. How Raphael is managing to hold onto the wheel in this, Claude has no idea.

“It’s the sea,” Felix says, miserable and clinging to the post as they pitch with the movement of the ship. “It’s the fucking _sea_ , that’s what his ghosts are, you should just let it have him!”

He doesn’t mean that. He can’t. “Silver. You said silver, and I had -- the coins, Dimitri, do you have the coins?”

Dimitri does not answer, just pulls at the chains and if he rips them off, he’ll take part of the hull with him. That really will be the end of it.

“Release me,” Dimitri shouts, but it is not his voice. It’s not the other voice, either, the one that sounded like bells. This sounds like something ancient and rotten, every bone and carcass taken and stripped by the salt of the sea, lying bare on the bottom. “Or I will take this vessel with me.”

Dimitri can’t go for the coins in his pocket, because this isn’t Dimitri.

The-thing-that-is-and-is-not-Dimitri strides sure-footed toward them, while Felix and Claude both stumble, falling back on the ground just beyond the cabin door. There’s shouts from above, something about _I don’t think there’s anyone there to board us if they wanted to_ and _someone else does see that tail, it’s got a tail, you’re seeing this, right?_ that fade under the crack of thunder.

Claude scrambles to his feet. He pulls Felix up to stand next to him.

Dimitri stands just beyond, chains wrapped around his fists. “Release me,” he says, again, in some other voice.

Claude looks up. Failnaught is still above his door, but the string’s been pulled back as if it’s going to sight an arrow. There is no arrow, but somehow Claude doesn’t think it will matter.

He turns to Felix, who is staring at Dimitri, expression wreathed with naked pain, his shoulders shaking. The water on his face isn’t just rain, he’s crying. “You don’t want him dead, Felix. I know you don’t.” ”

“He’s already dead, can’t you tell?” Felix isn’t even looking at the bow moving by itself above the cabin door. He’s staring at not-Dimitri, who is singing something, an old lullabye Claude’s parents’ submissive used to sing to him and his brothers and oh, this is very, very bad.

“Release me,” says the thing speaking through Dimitri. The press of dominance makes Claude feel as surely the ship must, battered by the waves trying to topple it.

 _They don’t call me Khalid the Storm Rider for nothing_. Claude reaches back and undoes the tie of the leather thong with slippery fingers, then grabs Felix’s hand, shoves it in his palm. He drags Felix toward Dimitri, despite the fact every instinct in his body tells him not to.

He knows they don’t have much time.

“What are you --”

“You want a submissive so much, get your own,” Claude shouts at -- the thing riding Dimitri, the fucking storm itself, whatever it is bedeviling them -- then puts every bit of dominance in his voice and strides forward. “ _Go back where you came from._ ” He shoves Felix at Dimitri, hoping to god he’s not just been reading too many of Ignatz’s romance novels and mistaking genuine hatred for old-fashioned lust and a broken heart.

Dimitri’s gaze goes clear for a moment as Felix crashes into him.

“Put it -- against what’s left of his eye, that’s how it’s getting in,” Claude demands, and maybe that’s a whole different myth but he’s going to have to try. “Settle him, Felix. Bring him back.”

Felix -- very ungraciously -- pulls Dimitri’s eyepatch off and presses his silver charm over Dimitri’s scarred missing eye. “Boar, listen to me --”

“His name, Felix,” Claude corrects, keeping his voice as even as possible -- which isn’t much, considering he only now noticed Failnaught is off the racks that holds it up and is sort of hovering there by itself. The ancient weapon turns and points its invisible arrow first at Dimitri, then at Claude, and now at Felix. “Use his name, get over it for _two seconds_ we have literally no time for you to sulk, sailor, _use his fucking name_.”

Felix keeps the silver pressed to Dimitri’s scarred eye, grabs his face with the other hand. “Dimitri!”

Failnaught draws back its string . The boat shakes and the storm rages, and Claude hears something _slithering_ , laughing, singing that old sailor’s lullaby about the end of the day, the deep sleep that waits, the cold, the nothing, the _bottom_.

“Dimitri,” Felix says, again, desperate and broken. He surges forward with the storm and presses his mouth to Dimitri’s.

Something shrieks, angry and thwarted. Failnaught’s string relaxes. The weapon drops, and Claude reaches out one hand, catching it as the ship suddenly rights itself, in an act of absolutely astounding reflexes that no one will ever believe, because the only person that could see it is kissing Dimitri Blaiddyd like his life depends on it, calming the heart of the storm, sending the thing back to sleep where it belongs.

***

The storm takes them like the snuffing of a candle. Edelgard doesn’t need magic to know its nature, but she feels it all the same; A tickling under her skin, a sense of wrongness that crawls over the deck and shivers in the sails. The ship is plunged into darkness with the swiftness of a door slamming shut, and Edelgard grips the rail and glares into the pounding rain.

Her crew has seen flash storms before, but not like this. A wave rolls above them, too high for the wind, and Petra cries out as the wheel goes spinning out of her grip. Ingrid, the one Edelgard would like to put in the stocks until she learns to _do her work_ and stop snarling like a Faerghus barbarian, lunges across the deck and grabs the wheel, boots sliding on the slick surface of the deck. The muscles of her upper arms tighten through her sodden shirt, and Petra wraps her hands around Ingrid’s, both of them straining to keep the rudder in the water.

The Black Eagle cleaves through the wave, and something flickers below. A shadow.

“A whale?” Ferdinand, who has been ferrying sailors below with his long hair flying in his face, stops to stare at the creature disappearing beyond the swell of the wave. Water crashes over the deck, and Dorothea drops from the rigging with a crack that even Edelgard can head over the wind. She curses, rolls over the deck as the ship pitches up over another wave, and Sylvain grabs her, drags her behind a stack of roped-down barrels as they break through a second wave.

Again, the shadow flickers in the heart of an oncoming wave. Not a whale, then. Edelgard can see the long neck, the whip of a tail, the ridge of scales, and she looks at Petra, staring hollow-eyed at the sea.

“Spear it if you can,” Edelgard says.

Petra is trembling. Ingrid, trapped by her hands on the wheel, starts trying to wrench away, and Petra staggers back as small, delicate hands emerge from the rain and take the wheel in a solid grip.

“Honestly,” a voice says, cutting through the crash of the waves and the rumble of thunder. “I’ll have to do this all by myself.”

Ingrid grabs Petra with both arms as the clouds seem to descend around them, as the shadows darken, and the prow of a ship slides into view through the pouring rain. It’s half decayed, unmanned and stripped of its sails, and Edelgard only gets a glimpse of it before another wave hits and there’s a wailing in the water, low and terrible.

Mercedes, who _should_ be down below with Linhardt, beams into the storm and holds onto the railing, waving an arm at the decrepit shell of a ship as it disappears into the rain.

Edelgard steps down onto the lower deck, and Dedue steps out of the rain to take her arm. She shakes him off with a snarl.

“I’ve seen this before,” he shouts. “Once. On the Areadbhar.”

“Then tell me how you survived it,” Edelgard snaps back. Dedue turns to the shadow circling under the ship like a shark scenting prey, and his eyes, usually so somber and dark, are tight with pain.

“Give it what it wants,” he says.

“What did it want before?” Her voice is swallowed by a crack of thunder, and Dedue instinctively holds out a hand to keep her from being blown back with the force of the wind over the deck.

“Dimitri,” he says. Edelgard stares at him. “I think. It wanted Dimitri. He gave himself to it, in a way. When he. Cast off Felix.”

Edelgard doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and she doesn’t much care. If this creature—this _thing,_ this storm—wants Dimitri, then that means it doesn’t have him, yet. Which means this is just a tantrum, and Edelgard knows how to deal with an entitled brat trying to kick up a fuss just because she isn’t getting what she wants. Edelgard steps forward, pushing herself against the storm, and draws her sword.

“If you want something,” she shouts, and the wind catches her voice, steals it from her tongue with a roar. “Then come up here and take it!”

Again, there’s a roll of thunder, and the ship beside them fades in and out through the storm, nudging them into the waves. Someone laughs, high and mocking, and the hairs on the back of Edelgard’s neck rise.

And before them, the shadow that twists through the waves emerges with the stench of rot and bone, spreading long, pale wings over the restless sea.

The creature that hovers over the stern of Edelgard’s ship cannot be called a dragon. It is a sick mockery of one, a beast made of bone and grey scale, with chains wrapped around its ribs and hanging from its limbs and neck. Twisted in these chains are the dead—dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, skeletons shackled to the beast as though to make a second coat of scales, clacking softly as the wind rolls through them. Some are almost fresh, bloated corpses of sailors recently drowned—others are yellowed and ancient, just a collection of bones held together by iron. Their sightless sockets stare out into the storm as the dragon beats its heavy wings over the deck of the Black Eagle, and Edelgard tightens her grip on her sword and stares into its snarling maw.

“You,” the dragon says, in a voice that sounds as though it’s been pulled from the throats of the dead. “You have taken my boy from me.”

“Dimitri,” Edelgard says.

“He would be mine,” the dragon howls, “if you had not interfered. Now the rats that scurry over my waters try to claim him, and you, you who dare to seek my heart, you claim him, too.”

“Your heart?” Edelgard steps forward, and a hand lands on her shoulder. Hubert, paler than he’s ever been, makes a gesture with his hand, and a sheet of dark magic pushes back the rain and wind. Edelgard gives him a tight smile and walks sure-footed over the slick boards. “Do you mean the crest? The relic?”

The dragon watches her, head swaying.

“Yes, I’m searching for the crest,” Edelgard shouts. “And I’ll have it. I’ll have Dimitri, as well. I’ll have everything you claim to be yours. And when I have the crest of flames in my grasp, I will tear it to pieces with my _own hands!”_

The dragon roars, a horrible, wailing shriek that sends what sailors remain on deck stumbling to their knees. Edelgard roars back, trying to drown out the sound, and spots Dedue holding onto the mainmast, a borrowed sword in his hand. They meet each other’s gaze in wordless understanding, and Dedue braces himself, stares up at the dragon with the grim look of a man about to die.

“Come down and fight me,” Edelgard says. “You _bitch._ ”

Again, laughter rings across the deck. It’s light, high, a child’s laugh, and the dragon swings it’s neck around, seeking out the sound.

“Humans,” says a voice in Edelgard’s head, high and mocking as the laughter that still echoes above the storm. “You never know when to quit.”

And with that, the ship that has drifted in and out through the rain bursts into view at last, the death’s head carving at the bow grinning in a rictus smile. Another voice calls out. Something glimmers on the rotting deck. The dragon roars again, the bodies on its skeletal frame rattling, and as it dives, howling, into the sea, the ship seems to disappear with it, fading into the shadows of the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We promise this fic really does end up Claude/Dimitri/Felix, there's just a lot to get through first. Like curses, and ghosts, and sea dragons.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up: There’s a Judith/Leonie/Nader scene in this chapter!

Dimitri comes to himself for the first time in nearly a decade to the salt of the sea on Felix’s lips. Felix kisses him desperately, roughly, the way he did the last time Dimitri’s will wavered, when the fell wind took him and the dead called for their due. Dimitri had made his choice, then, had stood before the storm and the sea and stripped free the last of his ties to land. And Felix had paid for it. Felix, whose fingers tremble on his brow as he presses silver to his scarred eye, who gasps like he’s drowning, who refuses to let go even as Dimitri opens his eye and meets Felix’s gaze.

“Felix,” Dimitri breathes, when Felix pulls away at last. Felix searches his face, panting slightly, and for just a moment, he looks like the young, jittery teenager who kissed Dimitri for the first time on the docks when their lives were still whole and new and full of promise. Dimitri raises a hand, but the chain attached to his cuff jingles faintly, and Felix recoils as though struck.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says. He isn’t sure for what, exactly—He just remembers the voices rising to a crescendo, the sound of the tune his father used to hum when he was young, the wail of wind against the hull of the ship—but he can tell from Felix’s shaking hands and Claude’s stricken expression behind him that _something_ must be amiss. 

“I didn’t do it for you,” Felix says. He’s still breathing hard, and he presses the silver crest coin back in Claude’s unresisting hand. “I did it for the ship.”

“Of course,” Dimitri says. 

Felix stares at him a moment. He sways with the movement of the ship, just as Claude does, but Dimitri is thrown off-kilter, an empty cup rattling about with nothing to fill it. He tips over, catches himself on one arm, and the chains bite into his skin. 

Felix rocks forward as though to pick him up again, hesitates, and turns on his heel.

“Tell me what that was,” Claude says, as Felix disappears into the dark. He’s holding a bow in one hand, carved out of a yellowed wood like old bone, and there’s a red stone at the heart of it that pulses faintly under his fingers. It goes dull as Dimitri watches it, but the spines at the edge of the bow seem to… move, slightly… and the bowstring trembles.

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says.

“Bullshit. Tell me again.” Claude’s voice is heavy with dominance, and Dimitri struggles for an answer, lying on his side in the ruin of Claude’s room.

“I don’t know,” he says, again.

Claude’s glare cuts through him, cold and sharp. “Think about it,” he says. He turns to the dark of the ship’s underbelly and shouts out an order, and Dimitri sinks to the floor. He’s never been so tired before. Not since his father’s ship sank, and he walked restlessly through the halls of the Fraldarius manor, wandering to the edge of the shoreline before Felix or Rodrigue came out to drag him back.

“Watch him,” Claude says. Sensible black shoes hover at the doorway. “If he starts muttering, get me. And Felix. Cover him with anything silver that you can find.”

“Yes, Captain.”

It isn’t until Dimitri starts to drift, the darkness sliding over him with the pitching of the sea, that he realizes that despite the whistle of the wind and the roar of the rain, those are the only voices he can hear.

He wakes with a start as the ship jolts, what’s left of Claude’s decorative goblets shuddering. He sits up, and Marianne, the young woman who wordlessly healed the bullet wound in his shoulder what feels like a lifetime ago, jumps up from her place on the chair. She stares at him, wide-eyed, and takes a shaky breath.

“Are you yourself?” she asks. “Or… whatever it was we heard before?”

“I believe I am the former,” Dimitri says. “Are we… have we returned to port?”

“In a way,” Marianne says. She steps back, pressing her shoulders against the wall. “We’re at Luna, an island north of—“

“I’ve heard of it.” Dimitri tries to finger-comb some semblance of order into his hair, and Marianne’s hands twitch. “I thought it was deserted.”

A bell rings above, and Marianne glances up. “That’s all hands,” she says. “They need the mages to help dock the ship—I wonder if Claude remembered that…”

“Marianne!” Claude swings open the door. “Can you do that thing you do with the sharks? I need men in the water, and there’s a bull shark causing trouble. Oh. Dimitri.” He looks at Dimitri as though he’s surprised to find him alive, let alone coherent. “You… slept well?”

“Tolerably.” Dimitri rolls his shoulders. Claude bites his lip, staring into the middle distance.

“I’m removing your chains,” Claude says. Marianne gives Claude a pointed look. “No one can afford to be idle right now, not when I’ve got Nader and Judith screaming at me from the beach like I’ve just torn up half the garden on a horse. Which I haven’t done,” he adds, when Marianne hides a smile behind her hand. “Not even once.”

“I’ll see to the shark,” Marianne says, and slips out from under Claude’s arm. Claude sighs and heads over to Dimitri, eyeing him warily as he pulls a key from his pocket.

“No voices?” he asks, softly.

Dimitri cocks his head. Just the wind, silent but for the whistle of the breeze against the deck. “None.”

“Good.” Claude undoes the shackle around Dimitri’s right wrist. “That. I’ve never seen that before. Don’t think I want to see it again.”

“I don’t blame you,” Dimitri says. He rubs his wrists as they’re freed, pushing at the skin. “And Felix, is he—“

“Not talking about it? Yeah.” Claude helps Dimitri up, his grip firm on his hand. “When this is over, we’ll need to talk, though, all of us. If it’s easier to do when you’re under, I can put you there, too.”

Dimitri laughs. It comes out hoarse, rasping. “That’s Felix,” he says. “He doesn’t talk about the past unless you put him so far under he can’t see the surface.”

“Duly noted.” Claude gives him a sidelong look—He knows, he has to, the kiss was proof enough—and beckons Dimitri to the door.

The deck above is drenched in sunlight, but most of the work of anchoring has already been done. The sails are put away, and while there are sailors climbing over the rigging already, mending what the storm ripped apart, most of the work seems to be on the shore before them, where a team of mages are dragging the Golden Deer to the beach.

The island itself is larger than Dimitri expected, with high cliffs that curve on either side of the bay like a crescent moon, and the crew are running a supply chain into the woods at the edge of the beach. Smoke rises through the trees, too thin to be a campfire, and a white heron takes flight from one of the cliffs, flapping slowly over the water.

“Oh, don’t be that way,” Marianne says, far below. Dimitri looks over the edge to find her treading water while a bull shark about her size swims in tight circles around her. “You won’t even like the way they taste. Go on. Shoo.”

The shark flicks its tail and swims off, a sulky, dark spot in the crystal clear waters.

“She’s the most terrifying submissive I’ve ever met,” says a woman at the rail. Her pink hair is tied back in a heavy braid, and she sighs at Marianne as though she were dressed in jewels and holding court at a ball.

“Good luck with that one,” Claude says. He turns to Dimitri, who is still watching the woman at the railing, and snaps his fingers. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

***

Claude spends the next hour or so blissfully unaware of ghost ships, sea creatures, ghost-possessed princes and angry, broken-hearted submissives as he and the rest of his crew get the ship settled and the repairs underway. 

Off in the horizon, the sun is beginning to set. There’s no sign of the storm that sent them nearly to the bottom of the sea, either. The skies are clear. There will be stars tonight, spilled bright across the night sky. There’s no moon tonight. He wonders if that’s meaningful. If it has anything to do with that - that thing that spoke through Dimitri. The thing that swam under the ship. 

The ship with the yawning death’s head on the -- 

_Nope. Not thinking about it._

“I am not. Going back. On that _ship_.” Lysithea, who practically flew off the Golden Deer like a specter herself, is standing on the shore and pointing vaguely toward the water. Leonie is standing next to her, nodding along sympathetically. She can handle the dom energy Lysithea flings out like a dark spikes when she’s worked up. “I’ll live here!” 

“I’m not sure you can just move here like that,” Leonie says. “Probably you should ask the, ah. Owners? Are they the owners?” 

“This is an uninhabited island, Leonie,” Lysithea snaps. “You can’t just _own_ it. They’re squatting. _Obviously_.” 

“Okay,” Leonie says, in a soothing voice. “Maybe don’t say that to Judith and Nader, though.” She glances over at Claude, eyes wide. “Captain, got anything for me to go do?” 

It’s clear that all she wants is a task. Leonie’s a submissive, but her needs are specific not just to service but _physical_ service, and standing there while Lysithea vibrates with rage is clearly not cutting it. 

Before Claude can suggest she go haul things with Raphael, there comes the sound of a booming voice, shouting in Almyran. 

Claude has had a very long day. He should probably be glad that the voice shouting at him is using the Almyran term for _nephew_ and not _boy_ , or his actual name, though he doubts Felix or Dimitri would even notice and they’re the only ones who don’t know what it is. 

“Uncle,” he calls back, watching as a tall man with wild hair and a smile as fierce as the scar on his face walks up with a swagger Claude knows all too well. 

“Funny, I don’t remember hearing you were on your way,” Nader the Undefeated booms. 

“Guess the letter I tied to a gull’s foot didn’t make it yet,” Claude jokes, and accepts the enthusiastic, back-slapping hug of his uncle. 

Nader murmurs in his ear in Almyra, “Is there trouble?” 

“Isn’t there always?” Claude answers, and sighs. “We hit a storm --” 

“My nephew?” Nader pulls back, hands on Claude’s shoulders. “Mine? Crown Prince Khalid the Storm-Rider, son of King Malik, Conqueror of Starry Seas? Ruler of the Blood Red Tides? Subjugator of the --” 

“Yes,” Claude interrupts, only a little testily. His head’s pounding. “It wasn’t natural. There was -- a ship.” 

“I hear they’re out there,” Nader says, clearly amused. 

“I’ll tell you about it later, okay? Promise. And could you not use my name? My real name, I mean. I have a new crew member who doesn’t know it and, uh.” Claude has no one idea how to explain about Dimitri. He nods over to where Dimitri is helping haul lumber, for the moment not possessed of any of his ghosts. He hopes, anyway. “Two of them, actually. It’s complicated.” 

“It’s always complicated with you,” Nader says, cheerfully enough. “Yes, yes, but you’ll tell me and your aunt, later.” 

“Sure. Where is she, anyway? I was thinking I’d see if Leonie could help her out. Lysithea’s still a little freaked out by the ghost ship, and --” He winces as Nader makes a quick gesture, an old Almyran superstition against the wickedness of unnatural spectral seaborn vessels. “You don’t need to do that, we’re not on the ship.” 

“I don’t take any chances. I already ended up marooned on an island with a damn pirate hunter, eh?” 

Claude gives his uncle a look, but his mouth quirks into a genuine smile. Nader is one of his favorite people; family, of course, but more than that...Nader’s been loyal to Claude’s father since they were children and has never once wavered in his support for the broody, sometimes brash kind of Almyra. “You married her and you run a bootlegging operation from the island you two washed up on.” Speaking of, Claude doesn’t drink often but he could use some spiced rum tonight, that’s for sure. 

Nader grins. “Right. Don’t want anything to ruin it, kiddo, that’s my point.” He switches to Fodlan. “Judith! Get out of that tree and get down here, the boy’s got a favor.” 

There’s a rustle from the treeline and a woman drops out of her perch amidst the branches and saunters out, dressed in leathers and whistling sharply. There’s a bow slung over her back, and her dark hair is pulled into a ponytail. “Well, look what the tide dragged in. What happened to your boat, boy? Gonna make your old man mad if you fucked up your ship.” 

Claude sighs. His entire family is like this, even the ones who aren’t technically related by blood. “He wrecked three ships into the rocks before he was twenty, didn’t Nader tell you that?” 

Nader chuckles. “That he did, eh, that he did! Malik would sail to the sea floor if he could. My brother thinks he is king not just of Almyra, but the sea. And the rocks who should move out of his way.” 

Nader is not actually Claude’s uncle. He’s one of Claude’s father’s cousins, though he chose to swear allegiance to the then crown prince of Almyra, making him Malik’s blood-brother as was their custom. 

Years ago, Nader was in a pitched naval battle against Alliance officers when he was thrown overboard thanks to a cannon shot. His ship, the Aurora, went under, but his uncle came by his sobriquet honestly; Nader’s ship may have been defeated, but _he_ wasn’t. He grabbed at a few pieces of wood and clung to them as the ship went under, orienting himself by the stars to try head toward an island he’d seen in the distance. 

He made it there, exhausted and dehydrated, washing up parched and sunburned on the shore of Luna Island. As it happens, though, he wasn’t the only one. 

Judith of House Daphnel, one of the most decorated Alliance naval officers in the fleet, had been in the middle of her own battle when a wave took her off the deck and into the waves. Her ship hadn’t sunk, but they’d needed repairs and it’d limped away after sinking the Aurora without realizing Judith wasn’t on board. 

She’d ended up on the same island as Nader; her enemy, with whom she didn’t even share a language, the two of them weak and with no choice but to kill each other or work together to ensure survival. From Nader’s stories, they’d done a lot of shouting in languages neither understood before they begrudgingly agreed to become temporary allies. 

That obviously worked itself out with the two of them becoming something a little more than temporary allies. By the time they made contact with their respective families, they were even more than _that_. While they’d decided it was easier to just stay on the island, Claude knew they both got lonely for company on occasion. 

Right before Claude can explain why his ship is there, Judith leans in and says, “I’ve heard your father’s fleet is moving this way,” which is the absolute last thing Claude wants to hear. 

Almyra is not a place, not really. It’s a people, made up of a fleet of ships ever on the move in the dark waters, masters of any tides. People once thought they were a ruthless band of pirates from some unknown shores, and to be honest, Claude is almost certain that attitude is still prevalent among a lot of people. 

But the truth is that Almyra is not a place to be found, but a fleet to be joined. If you’re worthy. Judith proved her worth by facing down the sea and winning the heart of a true warrior. Claude’s mother, who dared throw away her noble heritage and sail into the unknown with a brash young Almyran who never even told her that he was one day to be the king. 

Claude loves his father, he does. But the sight of Almyra descending, massive rows of their sleek boats and gold-and-green sails, the lead ship without a figurehead save the king himself standing there with scimitar raised...this is probably the last thing he needs right now, as magnificent as it may be to behold. 

“Any way to tell him maybe not to do that?” Claude asks, a little weakly. 

Judith laughs heartily, and Nader slaps him on the back so hard he nearly falls over. “You’re funny, kiddo. As if anyone can tell your father anything.” 

“My mother can,” Claude says, with a hopeful look at Judith. 

“Maybe it would be a good thing,” Nader says. “For him to come.” His eyes slide over to where Dimitri is standing in the fading sun, wiping his face with his shirt. He looks, at least from a distance, content. “You could make quite an impression, giving him that one.” 

So Nader knows who Dimitri is, of course. 

Across from Dimitri, Felix is sitting in the shade of a tree and sipping water, unwinding and unknotting rope with his clever fingers. He’s staring at Dimitri, though the few times Dimitri turns, Felix stares down at his lap as if he doesn’t want Dimitri to see. 

Possessiveness rouses in Claude, and he’s not sure what’s about or who it’s even for; Dimitri, who went to his knees and went under so prettily, so sweetly, with such gratitude on those handsome features? 

Felix, who broke only because Claude earned it from him? 

No time to worry about. He whistles and calls out to Leonie, who looks relieved when she trots over in an easy, loping run to join them. “Someone needs to be all right with listening to her. She’s still going about the gho--” 

“Don’t,” Claude says, quickly. 

“Oh, right.” Leonie shrugs. “Anyway, I don’t know what to tell her, and she won’t let me _do_ anything.” Leonie glances around, kicks her heel in the sand. She’s fidgeting, a sure sign that she’s agitated. 

In the distance, Lysithea storms over to where Felix is sitting with the ropes, hands on her hips. A captive audience. 

Dimitri is still working, his shirt off, and Hilda is leaning lazily against the ship pointing at where he needs to go. Dimitri looks fine, and Hilda’s smile is pleased, which, of course. She’s always happy when she can boss attractive people around. 

Lorenz and Ignatz appear to be arguing over a map, and Raphael is, like Dimitri, hauling lumber and supplies. Unlike Dimitri, he’s singing and making Marianne -- who has one of the ship’s cats in her arms -- smile. 

“Judith, Nader, do you have something Leonie could help you with?” 

“Please, please tell me you have something to do that will tire me out and let me be useful,” Leonie says, and maybe it’s the stress showing but it’s so eager that Judith and Nader -- dominants both -- look at her with sudden, sharp interest. 

They’re dominants on an island with no submissive. Leonie is a submissive who just survived nearly sinking on a ship at sea in an unnatural storm. She’s fairly vibrating with the urge to be useful, to be put under, and Nader and Judith are staring at her like she’s fruit fallen ripe from the vine. 

Claude’s eyebrows go up. Well, maybe someone should have a good time on this island. “You okay with this, Leonie?” As far as he knows, Leonie is almost as picky as Lysithea. She sometimes will sub for Hilda, who at least makes her carry stuff and do chores, and Claude’s walked into a room he thought was too empty after Leonie’s carried endless boxes to and fro for Hilda and found Leonie riding Hilda’s face, so at least Hilda’s good enough to get her off after she’s done bossing her around. 

But it’s clear that Leonie probably needs something more than Hilda’s sometimes distracted dominant energy to settle her. And from the way his uncle and aunt are smiling, well, Leonie deserves something nice. 

Still, he has to check. He tugs her over for a moment, draws her in and murmurs, “They’re a lot. I know that look. You good with that?” 

Leonie grabs his shirt and twists. She’s strong. He’s seen her do one-handed pushups and it shows. “I cannot tell you how good I am with that, without maybe making you uncomfortable since they’re your relatives.” 

Claude laughs, and it’s the first time in a long time that it’s felt honest, easy. “Then go have some fun, Leonie.” 

She grins, nods, and says, “Thanks, Cap’n,” before hurrying back to his aunt and uncle. She’s probably in for a good night. He can’t say he’s not jealous, but they have work to do, and if his father really is on his way with the Almyran fleet….they need to get out of here, fast. 

If the future King of Faerghus is here, King Malik won’t let him leave this island on anyone’s ship but his. Claude’s already got a ghost ship, a water dragon and a possessed prince with a strained relationship with his cranky ex-boyfriend to deal with. He doesn’t need to add a war on top of it. 

***

It’s not like Leonie’s never thought about this before. She has. They’ve stopped here at Luna a time or two, and she’s always _noticed_ Nader and Judith. They’re legendary, and they’re the kind of dominants that make Leonie’s mind go fuzzy and her breath tight. The kind that look like they want you to _work_. 

It’s different than Hilda, though she’ll do in a pinch when Leonie has the need for it riding her hard. Hilda’s not very inspired, and her chores on the ship aren’t that hard, so Leonie mostly finds it pleasant enough but not really the bone-deep satisfaction she craves. 

She gets it with Nader and Judith, though. They take her up to the distillery, where they make a spice rum and an alcoholic white lightning whiskey that would take the hair off someone’s chest if they drank it too fast. It’s almost as strong as Brigid whiskey and that’s saying something. Leonie helps them move casks and sweep the floors, stripped down to her trousers and boots and a simple sleeveless tank. 

Judith is wearing much the same, as is Nader. They give her clear, concise instructions. She follows them to the letter, eagerly, and Judith smiles and nods, and Nader gives her a toothy grin and calls her “kitten” and she feels herself slipping happily under the longer she works. Their approval feels like warm rain on a cold day, and it eases the last of the jagged edges of anxiety that’s plagued her since the adrenaline crash of the storm. 

She’s pleasantly under when they’re done, and Leonie follows them back to the villa. Judith pulls out a pillow that looks like it’s not been used in a while, and Leonie immediately takes it and dusts it off before she settles on the floor. 

Things go a little hazy after that, with Judith giving her something cool to drink and petting her hair, letting her drift while she ane Nader talk. A few times she thinks they slip into Almyran, maybe, and she hears Claude’s actual given name a few times. 

At some point there’s a snack and a bath, and then she’s being called a very good girl while she lays naked between Judith’s thighs. They’re so muscular and lovely, and she makes the prettiest noises when Leonie makes her come with her tongue and her fingers. 

“You’re such a good girl, Nader, can we keep her,” Judith murmurs, pushing up on her elbows, dark hair in her face, cheeks flushed. 

Nader, stripped to the waist behind her, is running his hands all over her back and lightly grinding his cock against her ass. “I think maybe Khalid would mind.” He leans down and kisses at Leonie’s neck. “But she isn’t wearing his collar. Do you want Khalid’s collar, kitten?” 

“Ah,” Leonie says, shivering as Judith draws her in for a kiss, licking her own taste from Leonie’s mouth. “I -- well, I, of course, I’m very, ah --” Nader’s fingers are between her legs, and he’s got big hands, thick fingers, calloused and they feel so good sliding through her slick wet folds. “Fond of, um, the Captain, but I -I --” She can’t think, they’re so much, the two of them. “I’m not sure we’re very. Compatible and that’s, ohhh, your fingers feel so good --” 

Nader laughs, fucking her with two fingers, other hand steady around her neck. “You’re too good for my Khalid. You like work, you do it well. He wants a submissive to be like the sea, eh, Judith? Just like Malik, who makes the waves bow with a glance, he likes _difficult_. But you, Leonie. So slick and wet for us, you like to work hard, be rewarded, don’t you?” 

“You bet I do,” Leonie says, almost swooning. She can’t even remember the last time submitting felt this good. “I want to be worn out when I’m done. I like -- mm -- knowing I. Did a good job.” 

“Well,” Judith says, taking Leonie’s face in her hands. “We don’t often get to do this, so I think we can make sure you’re well and truly worn out, you gorgeous thing.” 

Leonie beams. “Thank you both,” she breathes. “I really needed this.” 

“Sweet kitten, it’s our pleasure,” Judith says, and smiles slow and wicked at Nader over Leonie’s shoulder. 

It has been awhile for her, so they let her go slow when she sits astride Nader’s hips and rides him; he’s covered in scars, heavily-muscled and broad, with wide shoulders and a firm chest lightly furred with hair. It reminds Leonie of being astride a wyvern, and she remembers all those stories Claude tells at night on board the ship, spinning tales of dragons and wyverns that turn into people. 

Judith kneels behind her, hands moving over Leonie’s breasts and down, rubbing her between her legs as she murmurs praise in Leonie’s ear while Leonie rides Nader with gasping, eager little cries. She makes her come twice before she settles her hands on Leonie’s hips, helping her ride Nader hard enough that she’s sweat-dampened and breathless before he comes beneath her. 

Leonie thinks they might be done, but then they switch places, Judith on her back with a toy strapped to her thighs and a grin on her face, and Leonie thinks maybe that storm wasn’t quite the bad omen everyone thought. She certainly doesn’t have any complaints, that’s for sure. 

It’s full dark by the time she wakes up, naked and sticky and utterly, deliciously wrecked by the orgasms and praise and sheer physical exertion of all the chores and some truly acrobatic sex. Leonie’s grinning and wobbly-legged and starving, and she doesn’t even think twice about walking naked out into the main room and curling up on the pillow at their feet. 

They’re speaking in Almyran and Fodlan both, and both petting her, and gradually Leonie comes back up enough to eat dinner, which they both bicker over feeding her. It’s nice. She likes it here, and while she can see the appeal of being naked for both of them and heck, maybe even collared, she knows she’ll go with Claude as long as he needs her. 

“Would you like to stay the night with us, Leonie?” Judith asks, smiling. “We’ll return you to Claude in the morning.” 

“Sure,” Leonie says, beaming, taking a bite of fruit Judith gives her, tart and sweet. “I figure that’s what he had in mind.” She stretches her legs out in front of her. “I hope we can fix up the ship, though. Not that I don’t mind sticking around,” she adds, lest she sound grateful for what is honestly a really great time. “But, well, I’ve a sea-debt to Claude. I need to see it through.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Judith says. “What kind?” 

“My ship, or, well, the merchant vessel I was on, the Sauin? It went down.” 

“Pirates?” Nader asks. 

“Hardly,” Leonie scoffs, leaning into his warm hand on her head. “Bandits, that’s all. Old decommissioned navy ship, terrible weapons. But we weren’t a fighter, just traders. Claude rescued me on the Golden Deer and I mean to pay him back. Learn to be a captain myself, start up a merchant fleet. Better weapons, maybe.” 

“That’s admirable,” Judith says. “I hope you know that Luna will always welcome a visit from you no matter what crew you’re sailing with.” 

Leonie smiles. “I was hoping you’d say that. Want me to do the dishes?” 

***

Ashe leans against the mizzenmast of the Black Eagle, blinking rain out of his eyes, and tries not to scream.

They’re alone in the water, now. The beast that had found them, the dragon of bones, the _thing_ old sailors whisper of with one foot in the soil and silver in their palm, has descended into the waves. The ghost ship is gone, leaving behind a thick, impenetrable fog like the one that swallowed the ruin of the Areadbhar, and the sailors of the Black Eagle stare at each other with wide eyes, half of them kneeling, others barely hanging on by the rail of the ship. 

Edelgard sheathes her sword.

“Every sailor on deck is off duty until the night shift,” she shouts. “Hubert. Ferdinand. Tell Bernadetta she’s navigating tonight. There’s an island east of here, Luna, that should be safe.”

Ashe runs a hand over his face. The dragon had been so close. He could see the armor on the skeletons hanging from its ribs as they swayed in the wind. He can still remember the stench of rotten meat and old bone, the brine of the deep sea—

“Sailor.” He blinks. Edelgard stands before him, her white hair hanging loose, eyes wild with the heat of battle. Her voice is soft, though, gentle, with an easy dominance that winds its way through him rather than beating him down. “Go below.”

“I can still work,” Ashe says.

“No. Distracted sailors are dead ones.” She touches his shoulder, feather-light, and Ashe takes a harsh breath as she passes him by. She stops at each sailor, leaving a word here, a touch there, gentling them, dominant and submissive alike. 

“I get why they call her the emperor,” Ashe says to himself, as she nods curtly to Ingrid, who hasn’t yet risen from her knees. Petra, the navigator, runs her hands through Ingrid’s hair and speaks to Edelgard before they both head into the safety of the hold. Edelgard rolls her shoulders and grimly takes the wheel, and the fog closes in around her, a curtain at her back.

“Ashe.” Dedue’s shadow falls over him, and Ashe looks up to find that the clouds are already starting to thin, leaving just the pervasive, unnatural mist that seems to flow with the ship itself. Dedue’s hair tie fell out in the storm, and his white hair hangs over one side of his face, dripping water in his eyes. Ashe wants to push it out of the way, feel the hard line of his jaw, his sun-weathered skin. 

So he does. He smiles a little when Dedue’s eyes, nearly as blown-out as Edelgard’s, narrow slightly at his touch, but Dedue bends forward, just enough, so Ashe can drag his fingers through his hair properly. It grounds him, a little. Makes him feel less like he’s about to be pulled below to hang off the bones of an old sea god for the rest of time. 

“We should go below,” Dedue says, and there’s a promise in his voice that Ashe hopes he isn’t imagining, a low timbre that must come from staring down a dragon with enough dominance to bring a ship to its knees. 

And sure enough, he doesn’t stop at the hammocks where what’s left of their crew have been stationed. He pauses for a moment, looks at the swinging nets, and gives Ashe such a calculating look that Ashe almost tells him it’s fine, he’s done it before, he can handle a little rope burn, before he frowns and keeps going. 

They end up in the armory, which is a disaster of swords and muskets spilled from their barrels, which Dedue kicks aside. A black cat goes yowling out of the mess and races off into the dark, but it’s empty enough in this part of the ship that Ashe is _fairly_ sure no one will notice when Dedue presses him against the wall and kisses him with all the pent-up dominance of a storm unwinding. 

Ashe’s knees buckle, but Dedue just holds him up by the thighs, refusing to let him kneel. He bites Ashe’s lower lip as he pulls away, breathing hard, and Ashe lifts his hands to Dedue’s neck, brushing the ends of his earrings. 

“Okay,” Ashe says. “How are we not all dead right now.”

Dedue actually _laughs._ “I don’t know.”

Ashe grins. “How are we not _dead_ right now?” Dedue ducks his head, breathes hot over Ashe’s skin as he shakes with laughter, and Ashe can hear himself break, somewhere, hysteria bubbling over the adrenaline and fear, before Dedue pulls him into one more harsh, hard kiss that leaves him strangely breathless. 

“One day,” Dedue says, “We will do this properly.”

“Uh huh.” Ashe groans as Dedue holds him _one-handed_ and tugs at his trousers, dragging them down. “Yes. Like. Properly like how.”

“Twist you up in rope,” Dedue says, biting the sensitive skin of Ashe’s neck. “The way we do in Duscur, sometimes. Blue, perhaps. Or silver, to match your eyes. Flowers in your hair.”

Ashe frantically tries to help Dedue with the rest of his clothes, but he almost falls out of his grip and ends up with his face pushed against the wall, barely standing on his toes as Dedue lifts him by the middle. 

“It’s okay,” Ashe says, when Dedue hesitates, a hand resting over the curve of his ass. “I can take it.”

“No,” Dedue says, and _goddess,_ his hands are on either side of his thighs, holding them together, Ashe would be dangling in his grip if he weren’t holding onto the wall. “Properly, I said. Next time.”

“There’s a next time,” Ashe whispers to the wall, his new best friend. “There’s a next time, yeah, I’m good with a next time.” He moans as he’s dragged back, Dedue’s cock sliding between his clenched thighs, and he scrabbles at the wall to keep his balance. Not that it does any good, with Dedue fucking him so hard his hands slap against the wood and he _does_ fall, once, bent over his knees while Dedue seems to go harder still, spurred on by Ashe hanging limp in his hold. Ashe manages to drag himself up, grabs at Dedue’s waist for support. _Moans_ when Dedue wraps one hand around his neck and holds him there, Dedue’s cock hard and hot between his thighs. 

“Take yourself in hand,” Dedue orders, and Ashe doesn’t need telling twice, not like this. “Let me see you come.”

Ashe tips his head back against Dedue’s shoulder, all too aware of his gaze burning hot on his face, and strokes himself just a little too tight, a little too fast, enough to tip him over and leave him panting for breath, shaking in Dedue’s iron grip. 

“Beautiful,” Dedue says, and it’s only his hand on Ashe’s neck that keeps Ashe upright as Dedue fucks up into him, grinds against his thighs, whispers something in a tongue Ashe doesn’t know, soft and worshipful. When he comes, Dedue holds Ashe fast to his chest, and Ashe hangs there, smiling faintly, filthy and sated and gloriously alive.

They kiss on the floor of the armory, for a time, just Dedue sprawled above him and Ashe luxuriating in his soft touch, the way his lips tickle his cheek, broad shoulders boxing him in. They clean up the best they can with one of the nicer rags by the cans of polish, but with Dedue running a cloth between his legs, Ashe can’t keep still long enough to really get anything done. Dedue huffs a little, giving Ashe’s arching back and curling toes a dubious look.

“You weren’t this restless the other night,” he says. 

“I had an audience, last time,” Ashe says. “Crowds do that.”

“You like being admired,” Dedue says, which is as close to the truth as Ashe can get. He kisses him, holds him down by the thigh so he doesn’t arch against him. “Wanted.”

“Who doesn’t?” Ashe stretches under Dedue’s gaze. He’s still naked, but Dedue’s clothes are damp and chill. “Can I take this off? Your shirt?”

Dedue’s breath hitches. “If you must.”

Ashe watches Dedue’s eyes go dark as he gathers up the sodden shirt. “This is doing something for you?”

“It’s. Very intimate,” Dedue says, fingers curling in Ashe’s thigh as Ashe touches the laces of his trousers. “In Duscur, for a submissive to do this.”

Ashe stops. “Oh. Oh, should I—Do you want me to—“

“Keep going,” Dedue says, and Ashe can feel the blush spreading to his ears as he starts to tug at the laces.

“What else do they do in Duscur?” Ashe asks. “You said something about kneeling, before. Or collars?”

“Collaring is a, mm.” Dedue actually glances to the side, which is ridiculous, because Ashe is _naked_ and they just saw a _ghost ship_ drive off a _dragon._ “Specific fetish. For. People who like to…” he waves a hand. “When the submissive barks or pretends to…”

“Pet play,” Ashe says. “I get it.”

“Have you… done that before?”

“Can’t bark without laughing,” Ashe says, helping Dedue out of his trousers at last. “Yuri gave the dog ears to Balthus instead.” He runs his hands down Dedue’s thick, muscular thighs. 

“Submissives don’t kneel nearly so much, either,” Dedue says. “Or crawl. When I first came here, I thought you all might… worship beasts, somehow.”

Ashe’s snort of laughter is cut off as Dedue lowers himself onto him, wrapping Ashe in his arms. One of Dedue’s thighs slides between his legs, parting them, and Ashe lazily rolls his hips. “So how do they do it in Duscur?”

“Bowing,” Dedue says. He stares down at Ashe hungrily, his gaze dark. “Exposing their neck.”

“Like this?” Ashe tilts his head back, and Dedue groans a little, presses hot, desperate kisses along the line of his neck.

“Yes,” Dedue whispers. “Like this.”

They fall asleep like that, in the end, Ashe with his head lolling on Dedue’s arm, Dedue wrapped around him, warm and almost smiling. And sure, maybe they should be in their hammocks with the others, but they’re not meant to get back to work until the night shift, anyways, and with a disgruntled dragon stirring the waters and a ghost ship gliding through the fog, who’s really going to miss them?

***

Byleth finds Jeritza standing at the rail, dressed all in fearsome black and staring out into the dark. There’s no moon, and the same clouds that bloomed in that preternatural storm have yet to truly disperse. 

Byleth doesn’t mind. Jeritza’s demon likes the storms, the raging violence of sea and sky. But he’s not a demon, now. Just a man with his wheat-blond hair blowing in the wind, nearly escaping the black ribbon holding it back. He wears a smooth black collar around his neck, with a simple ruby-red stone in the front like the heart Byleth doesn’t have. 

“I saw her,” Jeritza says, idly pushing back a strand of his hair. “My sister. She knew me.” 

“Perhaps she’ll tell the others.” Byleth stands at the rail and leans in close, drawn by Jeritza’s warmth, the living heat of him even now in the cool night. “Do you think they’ll remember me?” His voice is a bit wistful. He had liked teaching them, before, even if what he taught them was how to kill. 

Jeritza blinks and turns to regard him. “You are not an easy man to forget, beloved. But my demon knew you for what you were the moment we saw you. For those who live alone in their own minds, I cannot say if it would be the same.” 

Byleth reaches up and lightly draws his fingers over the back of Jeritza’s onyx collar. “We need to make sure they’re all right. No one needs to be caught up in this. They don’t know the truth.” 

“What is the truth?” Jeritza asks, voice mournful as a gull’s cry. “I am not sure even _I_ know.” 

Neither is Byleth. He turns to look up at the sky. It has been some time since he’s seen the stars. “The storms brought us together. We should follow them, I suppose.” 

“Did the storms bring us, or did we bring the storms?” Jeritza asks, head cocked slightly, regarding Byleth from his icy eyes. 

_As if you could do that,_ a voice huffs. There’s a creak as the wheel turns, a bright flash in the sky. _Take your overgrown guard dog and go below deck. I know what that look he’s giving you means._

“We were in a battle,” Byleth says, aloud. “That’s why.” 

Jeritza, well-used to Byleth talking to someone who isn’t there, arches one pale brow. “Hardly a battle, beloved. Barely a skirmish.” Something flickers deep in the shadows of his eyes, restless, hungry. 

He will need a battle, before long. 

_Don’t worry,_ the voice in his head murmurs, a sing-song. _He’ll get one soon enough_. 

The voice fades but the ship turns in the water, wheel spinning, as the wind begins to pick up. In the distance, Byleth sees the sky flash white with lightning. A few seconds later, there’s the unmistakable sound of thunder. 

“Come,” Byleth says, turning toward the deck. “Let’s go below.” 

There’s a hint of dominance in his voice, but not it’s not really necessary -- Jeritza has sworn to fall into hell with him if Byleth wanted, and he knows Jeritza will follow wherever Byleth leads. 

And the ship does not need them to cut through the water, ghost-quiet, the soft sound of a lullabye going unheard into the night. 

***

Edelgard stands at the helm while Petra spins the ship’s wheel, over and over again, like maybe that will stop them from their inexorable course and push the limping ship back out to sea, where _another_ island will be, magically waiting for them to conduct the necessary repairs. 

And island that does not have a ship half-dragged on an impossibly small beach, flying a very familiar flag that sets Edelgard’s teeth on edge. The last thing she wants to put up with is this. “Turn around.” 

“I am trying that, Captain, but we have a problem,” Petra says, muscular arms flexing as she hauls at the wheel. “It is called the wind and the sea. I cannot change either.” 

Edelgard lets that go. She sighs, then calls out, “Dorothea! Have Annette and Mercedes help you dock the ship, you can’t do it without magic.” She doesn’t bother mentioning Linhardt, who won’t be much help. 

“There’s someone signaling,” Petra says, pulling hard at the wheel. “I see the light flash.” 

Edelgard looks at Amyr, but it remains still, quiet, no ancient force pulling it. Just an angry Brigidian first mate muttering in her native language and shooting dirty looks at Edelgard, the sea, the other ship, and the island just in case. 

“Someone else will have to be answering,” Petra continues. “I am trying not to make the ship one with the rocks.” 

Edelgard stares at the beach, the other ship, and honestly thinks about crashing into the rocks. She bites out, “Hubert, the mirror,” instead, holding out one small hand. She can see it, too, the flashes of bright lights in a pattern across the distance. 

“Lady Edelgard, I am familiar with the signaling language,” Hubert says, ever attendant to her moods. “Perhaps I should --” 

“Perhaps you should hand me the mirror,” Edelgard says. “As I’ve asked you, Hubert.” 

They stare at each other, a silent clash of two very strong wills, and Petra mutters something about _stubborn idiots_ while swinging at the wheel. 

Hubert retrieves a mirror from somewhere amidst the wondrous folds of his coat and presents it to her with a sigh. 

Edelgard positions it, waits, and sends her message. 

_This is the Amyr. We took storm damage and seek refuge for repairs and supplies. I invoke the law of safe harbor and parlay._

A pause. And then, a return message. 

She frowns. 

_Great, it’s you._

Hubert, next to her, sighs. He can also read the signaling language, so she’s sure she’s not reading it wrong. 

_Is this Captain von Riegan_ , Edelgard sends back. Even Claude, as flippant as he can sometimes be, surely wouldn’t drag this out for no purpose, would he? It’s clear his own vessel suffered some damage, and there is a _law_ , Edelgard did not invent safe harbor or parlay. It’s how Abyss manages to stay -- relatively -- free of unnecessary conflict. 

_No_ , the message returns. Smugly. Edelgard doesn’t know how it’s smug, but it is and she knows it. 

“Captain,” Petra says, urgently. “The _rocks_.” 

“Send the mages to dock the ship,” Edelgard commands. She’s not running ashore because someone the Failnaught is playing games with the signaler mirror. 

_Tell Captain von Riegan that I am officially requesting safe harbor. If it is violated, you will be held accountable._

There’s a long pause, and then -- 

_Suck my tits, Didi._

Eldegard slams the mirror down so hard it breaks and snaps, “It’s fine, dock the ship.” 

The Amyr is brought safely to dock out in the water, and it’s in better shape than the Failnaught -- which shouldn’t please Edelgard so much, and yet -- but not by much. They’ll need to strip some trees for workable lumber, or, at worst, go the typical pirate route of cannibalizing pieces of their own ship to patch up the hull. Which she would rather not do; She does have a reputation to consider, after all.

The waters off the coast of Luna are magnificent and clear, with a shelf of white sand stretching under the waves for nearly a quarter of a mile in all directions. It makes for dangerous sailing, but she can already see Ferdinand, a sailor from birth and more at home in the water than a siren, eyeing the gentle waves at the shore with something like hunger. There’s hunger in Hubert’s eyes, as well, and Edelgard sighs as he makes a gesture and Ferdinand goes crashing into the side of the ship as though drawn by an invisible line.

“Hubert,” Edelgard says, in an admonishing tone. “I need him.”

“He’ll survive,” Hubert says. He strides across the deck, jacket flapping in a light breeze, and wrenches Ferdinand’s head back by the hair. 

Hubert always has been an odd one, really. He insisted on taking Edelgard’s collar, and gods save anyone who tries to take it off, but one look at him with Ferdinand and all thoughts of his supposed submission are tossed on the breeze. Edelgard stops to pat Ferdinand’s cheek as she passes them, gets a sullen glare for her kindness, and smiles faintly as Hubert slaps Ferdinand for the blatant show of disrespect.

Edelgard steps into one of the rafts being lowered off the side of the ship, which is already slightly crowded with the broad-shouldered Dedue at the oars, and sits next to the hunched, messy-haired form of Bernadetta. She’s scribbling furiously in one of the many thick journals she keeps under lock in Edelgard’s cabin, and Edelgard leans to the side just in time to see a little of what she’s writing.

_And lo, like a Saint come down to earth, the captain did draw her sword and force the fearsome terror of the sea back to the depths from whence—_

The book snaps shut. “Oh! Captain.” Bernadetta scoots on the bench, as though Edelgard needs more room, and tucks her fountain pen in an already woefully stained pocket. “So. We’re having, um. Truce with the Failnaught?”

Edelgard looks up at the signal flag of the Failnaught, which reads _befriend, our,_ and _(heart)bosom,_ which is probably flag-speak for _suck my tits._

“Hypothetically,” she says. “You’re sure you want to go on land? Not that I don’t want you to, of course. I’m thrilled to see you out, Bernie.”

“Oh, yes.” Bernadetta blushes to her roots. “Last night, when I was navigating, I got to speak to, um, the naval officer. Sylvain.”

Edelgard stiffens. Sylvain is on one of the other rafts, helping a disdainful Dorothea into knee-deep water with a bow. “Did he… say anything to you?”

“Yes, lots.” Bernadetta almost smiles. “He, um, wanted to know what I was working on, so I told him, and he read some of my, you know, _novel,_ and he actually cried when the heroine loses her horse. I thought he was being insincere at first, but apparently it made him think of _his_ horse and how his brother turned to piracy, and he said I could probably get it published so I’m.” She straightens a little. “I’m going out. Because I’ll need… life experience, if I’m going to be an author one day.”

“Oh,” Edelgard says. This may be the most Bernadetta has said to her in one go. “That’s good.”

“But only a little.”

Edelgard looks over at Sylvain, who goes topping backwards in the water with Ingrid’s foot on his chest and a shout of “I was just being nice!” and squints. “If he says anything… flirtatious…”

“I have full permission to stick him full of arrows,” Bernadetta says. “I know. Hubert told me.”

“Good,” Edelgard says, as Sylvain clings to the side of his boat, laughing. “That’s very good.”

Ship lore dictates that no one is to set foot on land before the captain, and while Edelgard has tried to explain that this is superstitious nonsense more than once, most of her people are waiting patiently at the edge of the water when the raft runs aground. Edelgard steps into the water, which is only ankle-deep, foam drifting at her ankles, and raises a hand to get a better look at the crew of the Golden Deer. There aren’t many of them on the beach, yet, though the trees beyond are too dark to see how many scouts they have in waiting.

Behind her, Dedue graciously helps Bernadetta down from the boat.

“I invoke the law of safe harbor,” Edelgard shouts, and one of the figures on the beach steps forward. Claude isn’t wearing his Alliance cloak or the dark jacket of a pirate—He’s in the loose, long-sleeved clothes of a sailor, with his hair held back by the scarf he usually slings around his neck. He waves with a mockery of the imperial salute, one hand on his heart.

Of course.

“Please, welcome,” Claude says. “I should warn you, though—“

“Dimitri?”

Edelgard freezes. That cry comes from the shore, where Sylvain is staggering from the foam like one possessed. Ingrid lurches after him, but Petra takes her in an iron grip by the shoulder, and the only pirate among them tugs at his silver hair and nearly falls off his side of the raft.

At her back, Dedue makes a low, soft sound in the back of his throat, familiar and wretched. And at the edge of the trees, carrying a crate of liquor in both hands, is Dimitri.

Edelgard meets his gaze, and nearly stumbles as the water churns around her, sucking at her ankles like a rip tide off an inlet. Bernadetta shouts, and Edelgard spots Dedue dragging her out of the water like a thrashing cat, her book held aloft in her one dry hand like a holy tome, but only they are affected. The water remains still along the beach save for where Edelgard stands, the sand sweeping out under her feet, and in the rush of the water at her legs she can hear the whisper of voices, voices like bells, terrible and soft.

Sylvain runs for Dimitri. The crate crashes at his feet, soaking the sand with alcohol and glass, but Sylvain grabs Dimitri by the arm and braces himself as though standing against a high wind.

Dimitri doesn’t move. He looks almost… uncertain, as he stares at Edelgard, who last saw him howling with fury in the chaos of battle, and he sways slightly, the way sailors do when they aren’t yet used to land.

Edelgard drags herself forward in the current, and stumbles at last onto dry land. The voices fade, and the water goes calm again, just the gentle shushing of foam on the sand.

Dimitri takes a hitching breath, and the world seems to hold its breath with him.

“El?”


	6. Chapter 6

Dimitri should be angry.

He should be _furious._ He should be roaring with it, the way he did when he saw Edelgard’s sails on the horizon, the way he felt when the singing in his ears and the demands of the ghosts crowded out every thought that wasn’t of Edelgard with her thief’s hands tossed to the sea, her eyes sightless, body given to the ghosts below.

But now, looking into her eyes, he can’t quite remember what it was she could have stolen.

Not his father, surely. She was a child, then. They were both children—or they were, until the moment Dimitri saw Glenn’s body dragged into the dark beneath the waves as though locked in the jaws of a great beast, when the ghosts called for his service. And that’s what was stolen, in the end. Not just his father. Not just Glenn. But Dimitri, Dimitri as he used to be, dragged below. The boy who skipped pebbles on the beach with Edelgard, the awkward teenager who kissed Felix so fervently, the young man who smiled up at his father as he took the spokes of the wheel. That boy had been stolen from him, lost to him, and Dimitri turns his gaze to the sea and bristles at the whispers that rise with the waves.

 _Thief,_ they say, sighing as the wind curls around Edelgard and twines its way along the sand. _She would be our undoing. Kill her for us, son. My son._

Dimitri lifts his gaze to hers.

“Dima,” she says. “It’s… good to see you well.”

“Likewi—“ Dimitri almost chokes on his own tongue as _Dedue_ strides out of the ocean like a vengeful sea god, holding a young woman with violet hair at his side like a limp suitcase. He hands her to Edelgard, whose mouth opens slightly at her new burden, and makes a straight line across the beach for Dimitri. Claude tries to intercept him, but Dedue shoots him a dark glare and pushes him aside.

“Dedue,” Dimitri says. “I—“

Dimitri is dimly aware of Sylvain—right, yes, _goddess, that was Sylvain_ —yelping in surprise as Dedue lifts Dimitri off the ground and into his arms. Dimitri tries to say something, but Dedue just holds the back of his head with one hand and presses him to his shoulder. He’s breathing hard, and it takes Dimitri a moment to realize that, for the first time since the night after Dimitri dragged Dedue from the burning wreckage of his home in Duscur, Dedue is _crying._

“Oh,” Dimitri says, softly. He still can’t touch the ground. Over Dedue’s shoulder, he can see the others staring—Ashe, Annette, Ingrid, even Mercedes—all poleaxed at the sight of the unflappable Dedue shaking apart. It isn’t right, he thinks, that they see this. It’s too personal, too private, and he wraps his arms around Dedue’s shoulders and holds him back just as fiercely, closing his eye to the astonished crowd.

“I saw the thing that wants you,” Dedue says, in a hoarse, low voice. “You cannot—you will _not_ —“ The command rolls through him, heavy with a dominance Dedue has never dared to use on him before, unchecked and overwhelming in its force. “You will _not_ commend yourself to be eaten by such a thing. I will kill it myself before it has you.”

“I don’t… know exactly what you mean,” Dimitri says, “but I may have an idea.”

“Good.” Dedue finally sets him down, well out of the way of the broken glass, and turns to face the others. Claude is watching them warily, looking from Dedue to Dimitri with that calculating gaze, and raises a brow when Dedue stands at Dimitri’s shoulder and stares him down.

“Who is this,” Dedue says. It’s almost an order, and Dimitri opens his mouth to answer when Dedue coughs, shifts on his feet, and nods to Dimitri. “I mean to say, will you introduce us, Captain?”

There’s no dominance in his voice, this time, and it strikes Dimitri just how powerful Dedue has always been, all that strength kept coiled, never once questioning or overriding Dimitri’s orders.

“Dedue, this is Claude von Riegan. Captain of the Golden Deer. Claude, this is Dedue, my first mate.”

Dedue looks to Claude’s ship and takes Claude’s outstretched hand. “I’ve seen your ship before, off the coast of Duscur.” He pauses. “Captain.”

“Have you?” Claude’s smile is overbright. “That’s something.”

“Yes, but the figurehead was a wyvern. You’ve changed it, I see.”

There’s a short, tense silence, and something flashes in Claude’s eyes. “That must have been before my time.”

“Yes. Perhaps.”

It takes a moment for either of them to let go.

“Ugh, save the posturing,” Edelgard says, approaching between the two of them. She scans them all with an arch air. “We’ve met. All of us.”

“Apparently,” Claude says. “El.”

“Don’t call me that,” Edelgard says.

“She doesn’t like strangers to—“ Dimitri says, at the same time. An uneasy silence settles over the beach.

“Well,” Claude says, at last. “This is nice. Let’s show you all where you can set up your tents.”

Edelgard’s crew—and most of Dimitri’s, who crowd him as soon as Claude and Edelgard have walked into the underbrush—raise their tents in a wide clearing surrounding a building that is part villa, part elaborate treehouse. Dimitri helps set up, mostly for something to do with his hands, but Ashe keeps insisting on doing the work while Mercedes checks Dimitri over, sending questing sparks of healing magic through him every time they brush shoulders. Ingrid gives Dimitri a stern nod and a bone-crushing embrace almost as tight as Dedue’s, and Annette does cry, a little.

“But it turns out,” she says, a little wetly, after Dimitri has let her use his shirt to wipe her face, “that Ashe used to be a pirate, and he helped us get a place on Edelgard’s ship with his, mm, friend. Except he and Dedue are friends now, in that way.”

Dimitri looks over at Ashe, who is diligently hammering a tent pole into the earth. “Really? Ashe? A pirate? He’s as straight and narrow as they come. But he and Dedue…?” Annette nods, and Dimitri leans back a little. “Interesting. I think I like that. Ashe is a good man.”

It goes without saying that Dedue is, as well. He wonders if he should mention Claude, but isn’t entirely sure how well that would go over. He isn’t even sure of it, himself. Kneeling for a man once does not a proper submissive make, however interesting and contradictory a man Claude may be. He reminds Dimitri of the little mind puzzles he used to work with as a child, with so many interlocking pieces that it takes a good week and a great deal of cursing to untangle them properly.

The crack of a hand striking flesh rings through the camp, which isn’t exactly unusual, but the resulting roar of shouting sailors and the thrashing limbs at the corner of camp is enough to send Dimitri to his feet. He touches Annette’s shoulder in apology before he pushes through the crowd, digging in elbows and twisting sideways between jostling bodies.

Felix kneels in the grass with one hand pressed to his cheek, Claude’s hand wrenched tight in his hair like a leash, while Sylvain’s wrists are deftly tied behind his back on the other side of the small circle in the crowd. Sylvain glares at Felix, who stares sullenly at the ground at his feet.

“Look me in the eyes when you fuck me over, Felix,” Sylvain says, and there’s more heat to his voice than Dimitri has heard before. “Captain! Dimitri, he says he’s crossed over, he’s _staying_ on some ship full of fucking _strangers—_ ”

“Sylvain.” Dimitri steps into the circle. “He has a right to choose.”

“To choose to _leave_ us?” Sylvain wrenches against the sailor tying his hands. “To leave _you?_ ”

Felix tries to lurch off his feet, but Claude holds him there, watching Sylvain carefully. “You all left him already,” Felix snarls. “You left him when you didn’t stop him. When you let him… become…” his voice lowers to a hiss, but Dimitri shrinks back from it all the same. “What they made him. When I took it for trying to bring him back, for.” He glances at Dimitri. “For trying to be what he…. When it all turned on me, and you did _nothing._ ”

“It was you or the storm, Felix,” Sylvain says, and this, this is the moment when Felix turns. Dimitri can see the light shuttering in his eyes, and he thinks of Glenn, sinking into the dark, of the rain, of a nightmare of Felix sobbing with his back bloody and bowed.

“Don’t justify my mistakes,” Dimitri says, softly, and when Felix finally looks at him, the anguish there is the same as it was that last night, when Dimitri made his choice.

“That’s enough, Claude, you have what you want out of them.” Edelgard’s voice cuts through Dimitri, and she steps up behind Sylvain to grip his jaw with a slim hand. “Open.” Sylvain unthinkingly obeys her command, and she slips a leather gag in his mouth, twists the strap tight behind his head. “Take him to Dorothea. Tell her I have a misbehaving noble who needs to learn his place. She’s free to ignore him,” she adds, as Sylvain is led stumbling through the crowd. “I have a feeling he’ll _hate_ that. Claude. We’re having a meeting indoors. Bring your… people.”

“I see why you like her, Hilda,” Claude says, and Hilda, watching Edelgard climb the steps to the house, tries to look surly and uninterested. “Felix. We have a truce for a reason.”

“He hit me first,” Felix says. He’s still looking at Dimitri.

“Right. Okay. I’ll have to punish you somehow. I don’t know, maybe I’ll make you smile. Weave flower crowns. Laugh at something.”

“Ha,” Felix says. He tears his gaze from Dimitri at last, and Dimitri lets out a heavy sigh.

“Come on,” Claude says, and snaps his fingers at Dimitri, hauling Felix upright with his other hand. “We’re going to that meeting. All of us,” he adds, as Felix opens his mouth to protest. “And hey. Maybe we won’t all try to kill each other, this time.”

***

There’s probably some sort of _significance_ to this meeting, but mostly, Claude is just hoping it doesn’t end in a bloodbath.

He reaches down and pulls at Felix’s hair.

Felix glowers up at him, of course -- he’s kneeling at Claude’s side, but it took some work to get him to do it, and when Claude asked if he wanted a pillow to cushion his knees, Felix gave him the same expression Hilda would if Claude asked her to wash the crew’s laundry.

He’s surprised to see Marianne arranged on a pillow by Hilda; usually when Hilda wants a sub it’s Leonie, who enjoys doing all the tasks that Hilda likes to give her. But Leonie is in a position of honor by their hosts, kneeling between Nader and Judith with the dazed, pleased look of a happy submissive who’s reveling in getting her needs met. Nader and Judith both keep petting her, and Claude is sure that if Leonie were a cat she’d be purring.

Felix, on the other hand, would be biting his hand and trying to claw him, were Claude trying to pet him nicely. Instead, he’s got a good hank of Felix’s dark hair wrapped around his wrist, so he can pull it to settle them both down. Which he’s been doing for the last however long, hearing the absolutely insane, absurd, and yet somehow _familiar_ stories about dragons, curses, crests and ghosts howling for vengeance.

Dimitri is very quiet, staring down at the table with a look on his face that makes Claude’s chest tight. It makes him pull Felix’s hair just a little harder, and the sharp little sound Felix makes isn’t lost on him.

“Let me get this right,” Hilda says, braiding Marianne’s hair. “There’s a ghost ship --”

“Shh,” Nader says.

“That superstition isn’t applicable to discussions of spectral ships when one is on land,” Hubert says. “If indeed it is applicable anywhere else.”

“Oh?” Ferdinand asks, kneeling politely by Edelgard, though with that haughty pose that says _I may be a submissive, but I am as particular about my submission as I am with my tea and my personal grooming routine._ “I do not recall you being so bold as to mention it at the moment we sighted the vessel, Hubert!”

“Enough,” Edelgard murmurs, with enough dominance that every submissive in the room -- even Felix -- sits up a bit straighter. “The situation at hand is what it is.” She glances at Dimitri. “I owe reparations for taking your ship down.”

“It isn’t necessary,” Dimitri says. “You felled the Areadbhar in combat and you gave asylum to my sailors.” His voice is tight, but he sounds more tired than anything. He also looks as if he’d like to be on _his_ knees, too, which makes Claude think too long about how satisfying it would be to have Dimitri kneeling on his _other_ side.

Now isn’t the time to get distracted, though. They have plans to make, and Felix is still glowering so Claude gives another sharp pull of his hair and it seems to help a bit.

“So it seems like we have three issues at hand, here,” Claude says. “We have the -- thing -- that came from the sea, that seems to want both Captain von Hresvelg and Captain Blaiddyd.”

“It doesn’t want me,” Edelgard says, firmly. “It wanted me out of the way. I simply refused to go.”

“It wants me,” Dimitri says, dully. “And I don’t know why we’re not admitting the simplest resolution is to simply give me to it and save the rest of you.”

“What,” Felix snaps, from where he’s sitting.

“Unacceptable,” Dedue says, voice full of dominance. “We may not have the Areadbhar but we are still a crew, scattered though we are.” He glances down at Felix, who tilts his head up and stubbornly refuses to meet anyone’s gaze. “We will not sacrifice our captain to - to whatever that thing is.”

“I don’t know,” Nader adds, from his place at the head of the table. “It might be the easiest solution.” He holds his hands up. “No need to plot my murder, sailor,” he says to Dedue. “But every captain has the choice to go down with his ship if he wants.”

“It would be the easiest, for all of you,” Dimitri says, so quietly, voice deep as the sea.

“Fuck you,” Felix breathes his face furious. “ _Fuck_ you.”

Nader gives Claude the _are you going to do something about this?_ look, and Claude sighs and reaches down to pull Felix’s hair again, smacking him across the face so hard it echoes. “Be quiet until someone asks your opinion, sailor.”

Felix snarls something under his breath but his shoulders relax, and he doesn’t speak up again.

“I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question,” Edelgard says. “But I would prefer if we had another option. One where no one was cast to an ancient sea creature in some absurd and archaic form of sacrifice.” Her voice is soft but it thrums with command. “Humans control the waves, not angry water dragons. I don’t care how many bones it’s wearing, it won’t get another set if I have anything to say about it.”

There’s a murmur of assent, but Nader still looks a little like maybe they’re being silly. Almyran sailors are a bit more practical. Or maybe it’s that they have less contentious relationships with sea dragons. The verdict may still be out on that one.

“So we’ll, what? Go out to sea, together, and fight some dragon?” Hilda asks, twirling strands of Marianne’s braided hair between her fingers. “What about the ghost ship?”

“Why does everyone have to keep _saying_ it,” Nader sighs.

“There is one significant issue with this plan,” Edelgard says. She looks at Dimitri. “To be blunt. It’s you.”

“I’m aware. That’s why I’ve told you, it might be best --”

“I am not interested in your self-pity or guilt,” Edelgard says, and Dedue makes a sound of annoyance next to him but even Claude can see the way Edelgard is looking at Dimitri, the scolding tone of an older sister, maybe. Someone who cares. “The dragon wants you, and in the state you were in when we fought, you would let it have not only you, but all of us. If we need you to summon it so that we can destroy it, we also need you ready to fight, not submit.”

There’s silence around the table, because she’s right and they all know it.

“If it has me, it will leave you alone, El,” Dimitri says, heavily.

“I said _no_ , Dima,” Edelgard says. “The sea has taken enough from you.”

Claude feels the weight of their conversation and wonders at the history there, in the nicknames they’re using, the sharp glance Hubert gives her and the soft sigh from Dedue next to him.

“I think I can help with that, actually,” Claude says. “Captain von Hresvelg, if you would concentrate on repairs, Hilda and Lorenz can take point on that with you --”

“Ugh,” says Hilda. “Thanks a lot, Claude.”

He ignores her and continues. “I have an idea about Captain Blaiddyd and his ghosts. Nader, there’s a fresh water spring up near the still, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Nader says. “You think goin’ for a swim’s gonna fix this? Thought the whole problem was gettin’ captain Bla-Blay -- whatever the fuck near the water in the first place.”

“It’s Blaiddyd, and I think the problem isn’t water, it’s _salt_ water. He’s better with fresh water,” Claude says, remembering the cold water in the cabin on board the Failnaught.

“No, he really isn't,” Felix says tightly.

“I thought I told you --”

“He’s correct, Claude,” Dimitri says, dragging a hand down his face. “It was raining the night you lashed me to the sail, and it did very little to help.”

Claude's mind is racing. “Waves kept crashing over the deck, though. If the storms follow you, Dimitri...that’s how it keeps you under. The rain doesn’t do anything but make you clear-headed enough to think you’re acting under your own power. The waves make sure you're not. You're bending your knee to it, but what you really need is someone else to kneel for. Someone else's collar." 

"You're suggesting yours?" Hubert asks, clearly dubious. “No offense, von Riegan, but you’re not especially known for being fearsome.”

Nader snorts quietly into his raised goblet, but says nothing.

Claude smiles across the table at Hubert. “How do you know that’s not on purpose?”

“Because I have no reason to believe otherwise?” Hubert’s eyes narrow. “I’m not saying this to take shots at your ego, Captain von Riegan. But Lady Edelgard shouted that - that _creature_ back down to the depths. All you did was send it our way in the first place.”

“The dragon wants Dimitri, not Captain von Hresvelg,” Claude points out.

“Unfortunately,” Hilda mutters, and Claude hears Judith hide a quick laugh in a cough.

“Was that a threat, Lady Goneril?” Hubert asks, dangerously,

“More like, a wish, Lord von Vestra,” Hilda says, sweetly. “If it’s a threat, sweetie, you’ll know it.”

“Enough,” Edelgard says. “If von Riegan wants to try and put his collar on Dimitri’s neck, I’d rather he serve a pirate than a dragon. I’ve spoken with Raphael, Captain von Riegan, and he thinks it should take three or so days to fix the damage on both our ships if we work together, which I suggest we do. At that time, we can decide what to do with Captian Blaiddyd’s crew but until then, I’m willing to keep them on as sailors under the terms we agreed to at Abyss.”

“That will be acceptable.”

It’s telling, Claude thinks, that it’s Dedue who answers instead of Dimitri.

“Can you get this done in three days time, then?” Edelgard asks, all business, and Claude is absolutely going to tease Hilda later at the way she’s staring at Edelgard, like she wants to bend her over the table, or be bent over it, or maybe both.

“I’ll do it in two,” Claude says breezily, because a little overconfidence never hurt anyone, right?

“Hmm,” says Edelgard. “We’ll see. If it doesn’t work, we’ll reconvene and figure out something else.” She glances at Felix, kneeling at Claude’s side. “And are you planning on returning Lord Fraldarius to his crew?”

“I’m not --”

Claude interrupts him with a sharp pull of Felix’s hair. “Felix joined my crew willingly. He gave me this.” He reaches in and pulls the crest symbol on its leather thong from beneath his tunic. “He’s not anyone’s to command but mine.”

“You’ve collared him, then?” Dedue asks, sharply.

Claude winks at him, smiles, but his voice is cold. “What I do with my crew isn’t your concern, sailor. But don’t worry. Felix is an integral part of this plan, and once Dimitri’s ties to his, ah, supernatural ghost dominant are broken...if he wishes to rejoin you, he may ask me for permission.”

“And will you grant it?” Dedue asks, eyes narrowed.

Claude has the feeling Dedue might not like him very much, which he supposes is fair. “I guess it depends on how nicely he asks,” Claude says. In point of fact, what he wants -- what he really wants -- is for _Dimitri_ to swear his loyalty, so that he can use that to his advantage when he tells Dimitri who he really is. Which it seems Dedue knows, and likely Edelgard, so that’s another reason it will be to his advantage to get Dimitri away from them all for a few days.

And he does want to help Dimitri. Of course he does. What good would making peace with a mad king be? Claude has far-reaching plans and there’s no reason not to keep those in mind right now when confronting this whole sea-dragon thing.

Which, speaking of --

“Can we all admit we’re looking for the same thing, then?” Claude asks. “The relic?”

“No,” Edelgard says. “Not yet. Fix Dimitri, if you can. That’s step one. If not, we have to figure something else out and no, Dima, it is not cast you to the waters and let you drown.” She stands up and bows to Nader and Judith. “Thank you for your hospitality and for honoring my request for safe harbor and parlay.”

“We’re pirates, not criminals,” Nader says, waving a hand.

“What my husband means is, you’re welcome,” says Judith.

“All right. Then you have your orders. Dima -- Dimitri,” Edelgard corrects, and for a second Claude can see _her_ exhaustion, and whatever that history is between her and Dimitri is as strong as the chains Claude used to shackle him. “I think it might be best if you made Dedue captain for the duration of your absence with Captain von Riegan.”

“That isn’t necessary --” Dedue begins.

“Done,” Dimitri says, and he’s not a dominant but he _is_ the captain. “I should have done that long ago. I’m in no shape to command, not while I am collared to those I...serve.”

Felix makes a harsh sound, something that might have once been a laugh. “And you didn’t need to take someone’s skin from their back to admit it.”

Claude backhands him, hard enough to draw blood. “I told you. Be _quiet_.”

Felix, whose head jerked back with the force of Claude’s smack, turns to him and _smiles_ all wild and bloody. There’s challenge in the curve of his mouth, the glitter of his pretty gold eyes, and Claude’s whole body flashes hot with the urge to make him submit and make him _beg for it_.

He pulls Felix’s head back by the hair, leans down, and kisses him. He hasn’t done that, not yet, and there’s a wild, heady rush of pleasure at feeling Felix struggle and then open his mouth, let Claude kiss him and _settle_ him, tasting the slight copper tang of blood and biting Felix’s sore lip just for good measure. The way he gasps make Claude want to throw him on the ground and mount him right there.

“Behave or you won’t get what you’re asking for,” Claude murmurs, pulling back and ignoring the outraged little huff from Felix that he doesn’t believe for a second. He catches Dimitri watching them, but Dimitri looks away the second Claude’s gaze settles on him.

Edelgard approaches them, and Claude is astounded by how small she is up close, given how much of a _presence_ she has. Other than a brief nod, her attention is all on Dimitri.

“El,” Dimitri says, softly. “I --”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I know what you want to say to me, and I’m not ready to hear it. I know you believe it, but the second they have you again you’ll go right back to wanting me dead. Nothing I say will convince you that I had nothing to do with the accident that took your father.”

Dimitri sucks in a breath. The wind picks up, just a bit. Claude frowns. Why the two of them? Why does this happen when they’re in such close proximity? He’s missing something and he doesn’t like it, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

“When it’s over. When you’ve given them up for good. Then we’ll talk. There’s forgiveness to be asked for, given, on both our sides. When this is over.” She goes up on her tiptoes, scowls and says, “Bend down.”

Dimitri does it, and she presses a kiss to his cheek, then murmurs something Claude can’t catch in his ear before pulling away. She puts a hand over his heart. “End this servitude and find someone worthy to bend your knee to, Dimitri.”

Dimitri nods, and Edelgard turns to him. “I want to make something clear to you. I know who you are, I have always known, and I don’t presume to understand your myriad motivations for the things you’ve done and whatever it is you’re doing. But, Captain?”

The fact she leaves off his surname -- which is sort of his, but not really, it’s more borrowed like one of his flags he flies and puts away -- is enough to make him believe she does, in fact, know who he is. “Yes?”

“Help him and fail, and I will still thank you for trying. Hurt him on purpose and I will hunt you until the ends of the earth, and a dragon wearing the bones of its supplicants will be the least of your worries.”

Claude smiles at her, his usual glib smile, the one that doesn’t reach anywhere close to his eyes. “Shiver me timbers, Cap’n.” He gives her a little bow. “If you know who I am, then you know I’m nowhere near yours to command. Try asking when you want a favor, princess. Usually works better.”

She doesn’t smile, but she stares at him with the cold, implacable gaze of an sharp axe before it falls. “This is no favor. It is no request. It is a promise.”

“And you always keep yours, do you?” Claude asks, tilting his head. This is fun. She’s a formidable ally, and he should do his best to keep things civil, but he can’t help the recklessness in his blood that wants to match wits, match blades, match ships. It’s too much a part of him to ignore, and he doubts she minds all that much.

“All but one.” Her eyes flicker to Dimitri, and back. “But I’ll keep this one.” She pauses. “No matter who tries to stop me -- from the stormy sky to the red tides.”

“Subtle,” Claude says, and mocks her with an imperial bow. “I’m impressed.”

“Mm,” Edelgard says. “At least one of us is.”

Claude laughs outright as she strides away, over toward Hilda, who is pretending she’s not waiting around for Edelgard. “What a menace she is. I’d believe she shouted down a dragon.” Since Edelgard isn’t there to hear it, he doesn’t bother pretending he’s not sort of fond of her all of a sudden.

He wonders what she said to Dimitri, but when he turns to ask, Dimitri is staring up at the sky.

In the distance, there’s a rumble of thunder.

“We should go,” Dimitri says, softly. “Before we run out of time.”

“All right.” Claude puts a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. “I want you to know something. It _is_ in my best interest to help you. But that’s not the only reason why I’m doing it. And I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Dimitri stares at him, this tall, proud man brought low by some force that Claude cannot see or understand. “I am not sure what I have done to earn your attentions, Claude. I cannot promise that this will work, or that I will shake these chains binding me to the ghosts who command my submission and my loyalty. But if it does, you have my word -- if there is something that I can do for you, as a captain or king of Faerghus, you need but ask and it is yours.”

Claude’s smile does reach his eyes, this time. “I’ll remember that, Dimitri. But first thing’s first. We’ll have to get some supplies - it’s a bit of a hike.”

***

Technically, Ashe _should_ be helping the others. He usually does when the Areadbhar anchors for emergency repairs, running back and forth between tents with whatever supplies his shipmates don’t know they need yet, but the Black Eagle is a machine, and half the tents are up and a cookfire built before Ashe can so much as blink.

Which means Ashe is left crouching in front of Dedue’s tent, staring down at the sad, lonely pallet spread out on the floor.

That should do. It does for Ashe, most of the time. It didn’t do for Yuri, sure, not after they left Rowe’s ship and Yuri declared that he would never sleep on less than two mattresses for the rest of his gods-cursed life, but that’s a rare exception, and he’s pretty sure Dedue doesn’t care.

Ashe slips away, disappearing like a shadow in the chaos of sailors bedding down for the evening. He stops to watch a man throw dice into a pot, makes a show of blowing on his knuckles when he asks for it, and walks away with three copper coins and a bottle of something that could strip tar off a roof. He almost feels bad when he leaves the Golden Deer’s quartermaster, but honestly, whoever puts a noble in charge of haggling prices should know what they’re getting into.

“I’m telling you,” Mercedes says, as Ashe drops an armful of supplies into Dedue’s tent. She has Annette’s arm hooked in hers, and her long hair swings loose at her back. “All they have to do is ask, and I’m sure I can introduce him. He’s just a big softy, really.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Annette says, as Ashe crawls into the tent. “But okay.”

Ashe is almost done when Dedue comes back. Dedue crouches at the entrance, his face cast in shadow, firelight gleaming over his skin, and stares in silence at the spacious tent. Ashe smiles brightly and drops the pillow he’s been fluffing.

There are three altogether. There’s also a blanket, quilted for the cold that can creep over the sea at night, a bottle of distilled water from the Golden Deer, and _another_ , slightly generous bottle of oil that Ashe has discreetly tucked into a corner, next to a roll of soft rope dyed a light gold. Dedue blinks at it all for a moment, then wordlessly enters the tent.

“Hey,” Ashe says, but the word is muffled by Dedue’s lips on his, soft and earnest. He pulls back, searches Ashe’s face, and brushes a thumb over his cheek.

“I don’t know why you are this way,” Dedue says. It’s dark enough that it’s hard to see the lines of Dedue’s face, but the hand cupping Ashe’s cheek is firm, gentle. Dedue’s thumb slides over Ashe’s lips.

“You mean…” Ashe shivers as his lips move against Dedue’s fingers. It’s as though Dedue is tracing the shape of him, trying to spot the lie. “As a submissive, or…”

“This,” Dedue says. “For me.”

Ashe’s laugh hitches to a stop as Dedue’s thumb presses against the corner of his mouth. “Maybe I like you.”

Dedue’s laugh, when it comes, is hollow. “I am not known for being likable.”

“Sure you are,” Ashe says. “I saw the way you were with the Captain. With the rest of us. I’ve seen you, Dedue, I don’t think you noticed, but I—“ Dedue’s thumb pushes into his mouth, and Ashe closes his lips around it on instinct.

“I noticed,” Dedue says, and his voice is a low rumble in the tent, full of the dominance he usually keeps at bay. “Let me undress you.”

“Yeah,” Ashe says, around his thumb, and Dedue actually smiles. It’s brilliant, genuine, and it makes Dedue look like the young man he is, not the impassive stone column he tries to present to the world at large. It’s the same smile he gave his plants on the Areadbhar, and Ashe beams back at him as he deftly pulls off his shirt and trousers. Ashe lifts his hands to the buttons of Dedue’s shirt, pauses, and bites his lip at Dedue’s wordless nod. Then Dedue is kissing him, running his hands over Ashe’s body while Ashe tries not to fumble with the buttons, tracing the firm muscle of his arms and the line of his back.

“Let me… stop _moving,_ ” Ashe says, and this time, when Dedue laughs, it’s a low, indulgent chuckle.

“What’s that term you Fodlaners use,” he says. “How the tables have turned.” He kisses Ashe breathless, presses him to the soft quilted blanket and holds him with a reverence Ashe has never felt before. “You brought rope, I see.”

Ashe makes an unintelligible sound. Dedue kisses his forehead—actually _kisses_ his _forehead_ —and gets up to fetch the rope. Ashe lies there, stretching out his arms and legs like a cat, drifting on the edge just by Dedue’s touch alone.

When Dedue doesn’t return, Ashe sits up on his elbows. Dedue kneels in the corner of the tent, holding the rope with both hands, and there’s a lost, almost desperate look in his eyes. Ashe gets to his knees.

“Dedue?”

“I don’t remember the patterns,” Dedue says, softly. “My family… I wasn’t taught, in time.”

“Oh.” Ashe gets up, and sits down in front of Dedue, taking the rope from his hands. “Not tonight, then. It’s okay.”

“I was supposed to be declared a dominant that summer.” Dedue’s voice is dangerously low.

“I’m sorry,” Ashe says. “I. I had to raise my siblings on my own, for a while, so I know a little what it’s—“

“It isn’t the same.” Dedue’s tone isn’t harsh, but Ashe draws back all the same.

“No. It isn’t.” Ashe puts the rope away. “Maybe we can find a book about it. With the patterns. You can practice on me all you want.”

Dedue sighs, and Ashe catches his breath as he’s dragged halfway into his lap, Dedue’s hand in his hair. “I cannot… Lose more than I have,” Dedue says at last, his lips pressed to Ashe’s shoulder. “They said you’re luck, in the Abyss.”

Ashe shrugs. “It was a joke, at first. Yuri came up with it, when we were working for the. The Count. I was caught stealing when I was younger, and he, you know. Threw me in a cage, at first—” Dedue’s grip tightens, slightly. “And Yuri was just a deckhand at the time, caught same as me, and he saw me and said, _Well, friend, looks like you have a dragon’s own luck._ Then it kind of… stuck to me.”

“He _caged_ you?”

Ashe skirts the memory like a dark pit, his memory scuttling around the edge and into the light. “He’s dead, though. The Count.”

“Good,” Dedue says, tightly, and kisses his neck. “Perhaps your luck turned.”

“Yeah.” Ashe threads his hands through Dedue’s hair. “Maybe. Maybe yours will, too.”

“Yes.” Dedue pulls back just enough to kiss him properly, and Ashe tugs at his hair, just a little, drawing him close. “Perhaps it has.”

They stay like that a moment, Dedue just holding him, Ashe trailing his lips along his broad, scarred body, until Dedue’s heartbeat stops hammering quite so hard and his breath comes easier, steadier. “What do you remember?” Ashe asks. “Is there something you can show me?”

Dedue lies back, drawing Ashe with him. “Yes, but we don’t have the supplies.”

Ashe braces himself over Dedue, hands on either side of his neck. “I can probably find it.”

“Paint,” Dedue says. “Paint you can wear, on your skin. A brush.”

Ashe shivers at the thought. “Give me ten minutes.”

He’s halfway to his trousers when Dedue stops him. “I didn’t tell you to put those on again.” Ashe freezes, and Dedue examines him a moment before he reaches up and unpins one of his earrings. “This should be enough to mark you as mine.”

Ashe finds it suddenly rather hard to breathe. He bends down, lets Dedue replace the small paste diamond stud—a gift from Ashe’s sister, years ago—with the dangling gold earring, and the weight of it makes Ashe feel off-balance, as though the gravity of the world is shifting to that single point.

“Ten minutes,” Dedue says, and Ashe makes a soft, urgent sound before he turns to the door of the tent.

It isn’t as though Ashe hasn’t been naked before. Most of the Abyss has seen him, if not bent over a bench by Yuri, then on the other end of one of Rowe’s collars, but in Yuri’s case, it never lasted long, and Rowe always did have a shivering young creature crawling at his side, and no one bothered telling them apart. But this feels… deliberate, in a way it hasn’t felt before, and Ashe is almost giddy by the time he finds the painter on Claude’s crew, who opens a box of paints and hands him a pot of navy blue and a thin brush. The earring swings when Ashe hurries back, and he blushes dark with the eager stares and occasional wolf-whistles as he passes.

Dedue smiles again when he enters. Ashe is kissed breathless for his trouble, left panting and pleasantly under on the floor of the tent, and he gazes at Dedue from under half-lidded eyes as Dedue uncaps the paint.

“This is… like a collaring, at times,” Dedue says, wetting the brush. “It’s a map, my mother said. It traces where two people are in their joining. It’s why you never do it just the once. People change. Their love changes, too. Bare your neck for me.”

Ashe tilts his head back, and shivers at the touch of the brush at his neck. Dedue works slowly, carefully, and the slide of the paint over Ashe’s skin sends a buzzing sort of quiet pleasure through him, pulling him down.

“This is a sun rose,” Dedue says, painting lines that glide down Ashe’s neck and curl around and around his pec, a dizzying spiral that has him gasping. “It symbolizes… new things. Rebirth. The god of the sun is also the god of life, in Duscur.”

He speaks softly as he paints, explaining each line, each curve, from the words he etched in the Duscuran tongue on Ashe’s stomach to the star he paints on his inner wrist. Through it, Ashe pieces together what Dedue’s life had been, before—The afternoons spent in the kitchen, baskets of oranges swinging at the window as he and his sister helped his mother cook. Long walks in the fields with traveling teachers, who taught them everything from language to the science of stars. His garden, rows of vegetables and herbs on one side, a riot of flowers on the other, butterflies and bees hovering under the bright sun.

Dedue sits up at last, looking down at Ashe as though over a particularly difficult patch of netting, and Ashe raises an arm to see delicate patterns and lines bracketing words in the Duscuran alphabet, which snake down his arm and past his bicep. His skin feels slightly tight around the paint, and he feels as though he’s floating in deep water, waiting for the tide to take him.

“Wow,” he says, and Dedue smiles again, beautiful and perfect.

Ashe shifts his hips when Dedue lifts him, barely notices the oiled fingers gently working him open until Dedue starts massaging him, sending pulses of pleasure running up his spine. He doesn’t hide his moans the way he usually does, this time, crying out with all of him, and Dedue smiles and calls him _perfect,_ kisses his bare palm.

Then Dedue wraps Ashe’s legs around his waist, and Ashe shudders when he feels Dedue’s oiled cock slide along his ass, already so hard for him. He tilts his head back, bares his painted neck, groans when Dedue pushes in at last. He’s full and decorated and _desperately_ wanted, and Ashe’s mouth falls open as Dedue finally starts to roll his hips, pressing him back against the pillows.

Ashe is so far under that he doesn’t even know he’s on the edge until Dedue tips him over, one hand on Ashe’s neglected cock. Ashe pants with it, his breath hoarse, and Dedue kisses him, licks into his open mouth, bites just above the painted rose at his neck. Ashe lets out a strangled cry at that, and Dedue hides his face against Ashe’s cheek when he comes, whispering under his breath. Ashe pats him gently on the chest, and feels Dedue’s laugh rather than hears it, a tremor over his fingers, lips curving against his cheek.

***

“See, this is why we can’t have nice things.”

“Aghnn fnn hng, Ingrrn.”

“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you hit Felix.” Ingrid stands over Sylvain, who is kneeling sullenly with his back to Dorothea’s tent, furiously scrubbing a brush over a pair of boots. A crate full of shoes waiting to be polished looms at his side, and Sylvain makes a faint, pathetic whimper around his gag when Ingrid tries to smooth his brow with her fingers.

“Don’t give _me_ the puppy eyes,” she says. He whines louder. He looks absolutely wretched with his jacket buttoned all the way up for once and drool running down his chin from the gag, and Ingrid slides a finger under the strap, testing the give.

“Oh, darling.” Dorothea’s voice is gentle, but there’s command there, which Ingrid is starting to recognize by the frantic beat of her heart and the hitch to her breath. Dorothea steps out of the tent and waves a hand. “He’s being punished. Let him be.”

Sylvain gives Ingrid one last, pleading look as she leaves him, then turns back to the boots with a sigh. Ingrid comes to Dorothea, who smiles at her with all the enthusiasm of a friend in the corner of a crowded ballroom, all lace and soft touches and good intentions. For Ingrid, who had to watch other girls giggle in their private confidences while she smiled grimly at her father’s latest choice of a suitor, Dorothea is a revelation.

“Petra says you helped her keep her grip during the storm, dear Ingrid,” Dorothea says, pulling Ingrid into the tent. The tent is thick with pillows, blankets, and furs, and Ingrid falls into layers of softness, pressed to Dorothea’s bosom.

She probably should stop thinking of it as a bosom, really. The way Dorothea says _tits_ should be listed on the top most beautiful words in the country, but Ingrid can’t quite make herself say it. She does, however, nuzzle into the patch of silky skin below Dorothea’s neck, which makes her laugh and pet Ingrid’s hair.

“I only did my duty as a sailor,” Ingrid says, into Dorothea’s magnificent breasts. “Anyone would have.”

“Anyone clearly didn’t,” Dorothea says. She pulls Ingrid up for air. “Just you. You’re so talented, my sweet Ingrid. So noble. It makes me want to ruin you.”

“Ah,” Ingrid says, eloquently.

“You were so reserved before,” Dorothea says, which. She must be remembering a different night altogether, because Ingrid certainly wouldn’t call any of it reserved. Dorothea slides a hand down Ingrid’s trousers, teasing at her curls, and Ingrid reflexively moves closer, gripping Dorothea’s shoulders with both hands. “I’d like to hear you cry for us, tonight. Will you do that for me, Ingrid?”

“I. If you.” Ingrid gasps, slightly, as Dorothea runs a finger over her folds. “I can try.”

“You’ll love it,” Dorothea says. “I promise.”

Ingrid’s already halfway there by the time Petra gets back. Dorothea has her writhing on the furs under her hand, coming with a cry that Dorothea says is _too soft,_ so Dorothea keeps going, thrusting her fingers into Ingrid and kissing her slack mouth until Ingrid cries out properly. Then, naked and panting slightly, Ingrid is drawn up on her knees with her hands behind her back, while Dorothea pulls a long red ribbon from her bag.

“It’s made for this, sweetheart, don’t worry,” Dorothea says, and deftly weaves the ribbon tight in Ingrid’s hair—just long enough for a braid, these days—before tying the other end to the pole in the center of the tent. The ribbon tugs her hair taut, and Ingrid has to lift up on her knees not to feel the pain of it. After a moment of this, with Dorothea watching her indulgently from the other side of the tent, Ingrid’s thighs start to tremble.

“Oh, good _girl,_ ” Dorothea says.

Petra sweeps noisily into the tent before Ingrid can so much as whimper in response, midway through kicking off her boots with her hair windswept and her shirt unbuttoned. She glances at Ingrid, who sits up just an inch higher, and then at Dorothea.

“Sylvain is drooling on your boots,” she says.

Dorothea’s eyes flash. “Oh, he’d better not.” She grabs Petra by the shoulder and leans around her. “Do them over, pretty boy!”

Sylvain makes a sound that could mean anything, really, which tapers into a whine when Petra tosses her boots his way.

“Sorry!” Ingrid calls. Petra frowns at her, and Ingrid clamps her mouth shut.

“No,” Petra says. “I am not. I am also tired of speaking. Dorothea, is this a gift?”

“If you’d like her to be, certainly,” Dorothea says. Ingrid shivers. Petra smiles, then, wicked and slow, and she leans down to kiss Ingrid thoroughly. Ingrid’s legs are shaking by now, and when Petra releases her, she sinks down to her legs with a soft gasp of pain as her braid tugs at the ribbon.

“The chain,” Petra says, shortly, and Ingrid makes a slight, inquisitive noise that turns into a hiss of breath as Dorothea pulls out two golden clamps connected by a swinging chain, held oh-so-delicately in her slim fingers. Ingrid’s breath comes short, and she holds it as Petra twists her nipples, pinches them, pulls her breasts up by them until Ingrid is squirming against the ribbon holding her still.

When the first clamp is latched on, Dorothea slips behind Ingrid to run her hands over her stomach, holding her, settling her. The second clamp makes Ingrid thrash against the ribbon, and the whole tent shakes, just for a moment.

“You bring this down on us, you’re sleeping alone,” Petra says, and Ingrid only just stops herself from nodding.

Then Petra pulls out the strap, just as wide and impressive as it had been that first dizzying night, and Ingrid’s mouth goes dry.

“Oh, yes,” Dorothea says, cupping Ingrid’s ass with both hands and lifting her up on her knees. The chain swings, and Ingrid gasps. “You’ll cry for us tonight.”

“Yes,” Ingrid says, and moans as Dorothea tugs lightly at the chain. She figures, in the dim recesses of her mind that aren’t drowning in pleasure, that she’s already on her way to being well and truly ruined. “Yes, _please._ ”

***  
The hike to the springs takes a few hours. It’s not an unpleasant trip, but it _is_ a quiet one. Dimitri doesn’t speak much, though he glances every now and then toward the sky and the clouds forming, a tight and worried expression on his face.

“It’s fine,” Claude tells him, a warm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s keep going.”

Behind him, Felix is watching them with an expression almost as dark as the thunderclouds gathering on the horizon. But he doesn’t say anything, either, so most of the time Claude is lost in his own thoughts and the other two are equally as lost in theirs.

They stop for a late meal under the shade of a copse of trees, near a cold water stream that runs down the side of the path that is a lot more mountainous than it looked at first glance. Before they eat, all three of them head to the stream to cup the cold water in their hands and pour it over their heads to cool off.

As Claude shivers pleasantly from the spill of cold water, Felix says, softly, “Look. The sky.”

Turning, Claude sees the storm clouds begin to lighten. He glances at Dimitri. “There is something to the water, then.”

Dimitri shakes the water from his hair and stares at the sky. “I suppose so. I wasn’t entirely sure, but that’s...well. It could be the wind, Claude. We are on an island out in the open sea.”

“Yes, but look,” Claude says, pointing. “See? Clouds move, they don’t just vanish. I bet they’ll start coming back the second we get away from this stream.”

“Perhaps you should leave me here, then,” Dimitri says, but he’s looking at Felix, not Claude.

“Hmph,” Felix says, nose in the air, arms crossed. “Maybe we should.”

“Maybe we will, if this doesn’t work. And to know that for sure, we need to eat and get going.” Claude takes out the pack of food that Raphael packed for him, trying not to laugh at how much there is of it. Raphael went a little intense on the preparations, though Claude supposes it’s better than the alternative. Though he has his bow, and he’s positive both Dimitri and Felix know how to hunt if necessary.

They eat under the shade of the trees, and Claude watches the careful way Felix and Dimitri avoid each other’s gaze while still trying to look at each other. Finally, he sighs and wipes his fingers on a cloth, drinks cold water from the canteen and passes it to Dimitri. “Will someone tell me what the story is with you two, or do I have to make you?”

“You have to make me,” says Felix, immediately.

“There is nothing to tell,” says Dimitri, taking the canteen. He drinks, head tipped back to show his throat, and Claude ignores the rush of desire he feels watching him swallow the cool water. He hands the canteen to Felix, who grabs it with a scowl. “I turned my gaze from the living and bent my knee to the dead.”

“That’s pretty, but it’s not really an answer,” Claude says, idly, one leg raised.

“It’s...not an easy memory to recall,” says Dimitri. “I -- there was. A storm. And I could feel something, it wanted me, and it was...the dominance in your voice, Claude. It was like that, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hear anything else. It wanted me and I -- I suppose I. Let it take me.”

Felix leaps gracefully to his feet. “Do you want to know what happened?” he asks, harshly, fingers going to his shirt. “I’ll tell you. I’ll _show_ you.”

“Felix,” Dimitri says.

“Go on,” Claude instructs. “Tell me. Show me.”

“You went mad,” Felix says, trembling, more emotion in his voice than Claude’s heard since he first dragged him from the sea. “You sounded like you. Like you did on - on Claude’s ship.” He finishes with the shirt, pulls it off, and throws it to the ground. “Like you weren’t just you. Something else was in there, too. With you.” Felix’s breathing is too fast as he pulls off his undershirt. He stomps over to where Dimitri is still sitting next to Claude, hands on his hips. “It was storming. You were talking about your father. My brother. Your stepmother, and you wouldn’t - you wouldn’t listen. Kept going on and on about what you _owed_ them.” His voice is scathing, a lash. He stares down his nose at Dimitri, sun already turning his bare skin red, cheeks flushed and gold eyes burning like the sun no longer hidden behind the clouds.

“I told you they were dead and it didn’t matter, you couldn’t bring them back. You said you could, you just had to do what they wanted. And I said you were mad, that you would drag us all to our deaths looking for some - some _thing_ that wasn’t real, and then where would you be? A captain on a ship of the dead, killing your crew one after the other and listening to nothing but your ghosts and crying about vengeance.” He all but spits the last word.

Dimitri’s head lowers, slightly. “Felix, I --”

“No! You listen to me. You’ve spent all this time listening to _them_ and this is where we are, Dimitri. You telling -- your crew, your _family_ , that you’d throw yourself into the sea for us! Die for us! All we ever wanted was for you to _live_. They all thought I could convince you, that I would get through where no one else could because I -- because we -- because I _loved you_.” Felix’s shoulders are heaving; he looks like he’s run the whole way up from the beach just now, one long burst of frantic energy, a storm of anger and resentment and pain.

“So I tried. But you didn’t listen. No, do you know what you did, instead? You did _this_.”

And then he turns around.

Dimitri sucks in a breath, makes a sound like a wounded animal. Claude is on his feet, realizing that the whip marks on Felix’s back are there because of -- because of --

“You did this to me, Dimitri. You tied me to a post in the storm and you whipped me until I bled. I begged you. I cried for you. And I -- fuck you, the worst is that I -- I took it for you, I _wanted_ to, you know what pain does to me and I --”

“Felix,” Dimitri breathes, as if he can’t say anything else, broken and caught. He gets shakily to his feet, expression ravaged by sorrow. “I -- oh, _Goddess_ , I - I don’t --”

“Remember. I know.” Felix turns, reaches down and grabs his undershirt, pulls it over his head as quickly as possible. “You made your choice and it was the dead. Your ghosts. So when we fought the Flame Emperor, I knew it was over. We were all going to die for you, storm-cursed, and I tried to end it.”

“I do not blame you,” Dimitri says, face white.

“Not because I hated you. That’s why I’m -- why can’t I just _hate_ you,” Felix says, miserably, and his fingers are shaking too hard for him to do up the buttons on his proper shirt.

Claude steps in smoothly and knocks his hands away. Felix tries to shove him back, but Claude snaps, “Stand still,” and the dominance is enough to get Felix to do that much, at least. As he does up the buttons, the only sound is Felix’s harsh breathing, the cries of a gull, the crash of the sea and the rustle of the trees. The gentle tinkling of the stream.

The rumble of thunder.

“We need to keep going,” says Claude, in lieu of anything else. “We’ll deal with the rest of this later.”

“It’s too late,” Felix says. “The storm’s coming back. It always comes back.” Despite that, he starts marching up the trail, not waiting for either of them.

“Dimitri,” Claude says, gently. “Let’s go.”

Dimitri stares at the cliff, at the sea, at the gathering storm. “Maybe I should --”

“Maybe you should do what I said,” Claude says, implacable, holding his temper with effort. “We’re going.”

“Yes. All right.” Dimitri takes the pack without being asked, and says, after a moment, “I didn’t think it was real. What I did to him. I thought it was a nightmare.”

“Maybe it was. But it’s time to wake up.” Claude heads up the path, toward where Felix disappeared. “And then you make amends.”

“He won’t let me,” Dimitri says, softly. “And why should he? Why would he want to?”

“I was there when he brought you back from the edge, Dimitri. It wasn’t the rain, or me, or my dominance, or the silver. It was Felix. It was his token. If it was too late, it wouldn’t have worked.”

“Do you really believe that?” Dimitri asks, pushing a branch of a tree out of the way and then, because he is oddly polite in the most curious of times, holding it so that it doesn’t snap back and hit Claude in the face. “Or are you just saying it to try and make me believe you?”

“Let’s get there and find out,” Claude says. “Then you can tell me which one it is.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the way trip, and Claude spends the time making sure both Felix and Dimitri are still _there_ , physically, while trying to figure out if he really is going to be able to do anything about this whole thing, or if it’d be better to just fall back, duck into the trees, and end them both with an arrow. He’d have to explain that one to Edelgard, but Claude’s nothing if not a quick talker.

He doesn’t want to do that, though. It feels cowardly, and he has a very vivid memory of the sailor on his father’s ship who once tried to throw his brother into the sea as a sacrifice. Claude didn’t let that happen then, and he’s not going to do it now.

Almyrans are one with the sea. They do not bow to its mercurial whims, or so says his father.

And Claude is a lot of things, some of them more unsavory than others, but he likes to think he’s not the type to put an arrow in a man’s back just because of a little curse. So he follows and schemes and hums an old song as he walks, sweat dripping in his eyes as they traverse to the top of the mountain and finally, finally come upon the spring-fed lake.

It’s quiet, the sun setting and the breeze picking up enough to cool the sweat from the climb. Claude motions to Dimitri to drop the pack, then looks around the clearing. This will do.

“Both of you, strip,” says Claude. “Go on.”

They turn to look at him, as if they’ve forgotten he’s there. Claude leans against a tree, pulls an arrow out of his quiver and twirls it idly as he watches. “Well? I can make you, and I will, but I thought I’d ask, first. This is me asking. Nicely, even.”

Dimitri doesn’t hesitate, simply puts down the packs and begins to strip.

Felix, of course. Felix stands and stares at Claude with that imperious tilt to his chin and a look that could not say _make me_ any louder if he were shouting it in Claude’s face.

“Felix,” Claude says. He twirls the arrow. “Is this going to be a thing?”

Felix narrows his eyes at him. “If I say yes, are you going to shoot me with that arrow?”

Claude winks at him. “Keep saying no and I guess we’ll find out, sailor.” A subtle reminder that Felix is under his command, even if he’s not Claude’s submissive.

Felix glowers, but eventually turns and sets himself to the task of doing what Claude wants and stripping down in the fading light of the sun.

Felix is half-hard when he’s naked, which he looks annoyed enough about that Claude smirks at him and laughs outright.

“All right. The spring is cold, but you’re both from Faerghus so it’s probably no worse than swimming in a lake in the summer.”

“Why do I have to do this,” Felix asks, as Dimitri wades naked into the water. Both he and Claude are staring at Dimitri’s naked body, scarred and still gorgeous.

“Because I said so,” says Claude.

Felix looks unimpressed, but Claude pushes out of his lean against the tree and starts toward them. Felix huffs and wades into the water, and now Claude can admire them both, standing there naked and wet.

“All the way under, Dimitri,” says Claude, and watches as he walks forward and sinks under the water. There’s a sudden rush of worry that maybe he won’t come back, but this isn’t the sea pulling at him with those restless, demanding tides. This is calm, cold spring water, and after a few seconds Dimitri rises with the water sluicing off his back. He does not turn around.

Claude takes off his belt. “Felix, take this.” He holds it out.

Felix blinks -- he’s standing in the water but he hasn’t gone under, physically or metaphorically, and gives the belt a suspicious look. “Why?”

“Because. What happened with the two of you, it’s part of what keeps Dimitri in bondage to his ghosts. And you’re angry at him. It’s putting our crew in danger and we can’t have that.” Claude has no idea if Felix is going to be able to do this or not. He’s betting on the latter. “So, go ahead. You owe him for what he did to you.”

“What,” says Felix, staring down at Claude’s belt. “You can’t really. Mean for me to - to _whip_ him.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“It’s all right, Felix.” Dimitri’s deep voice is even, low. 

“No, it isn't,” Felix says. He stares at the belt, at Dimitri’s back. “I was _angry_ at you. That you -- forgot me. Chose _them_ over me. That you -- that you. Tried to follow your father. My brother, who died for you. I was here. I was _alive_.”

“You are still alive,” Claude points out. “Both of you.”

Felix is staring at Dimitri’s broad back. Dimitri’s shoulders are shaking. “You whipped me and you know what that did to me. I _liked_ it, I wanted -- I would have let you for, for other reasons, but you -- you wanted me to hate it, you wanted it to hurt.”

“It wasn’t you I wanted to hurt, Felix,” says Dimitri, softly. “It wasn’t you I hated.”

“That’s no -- it’s not. I don’t care.” Felix is babbling, but he’s still holding the belt. “It’s over and I want it to be over.”

Claude, curious, puts his natural dominance in his voice and says, “Go on, Felix. Whip him with that belt.” If Felix wants to, Claude's dominance will give him the excuse he needs. But Claude doesn’t think any dominant in the world could make Felix do it if he didn’t want to.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, voice caught, broken. “ _Please."_

That does what Claude cannot -- the _please_ is the reason Felix raises his belt, trembling, and brings it down.

It’s hard to tell which of them make the louder noise, when the leather hits Dimitri’s broad back. He barely flinches. Felix is strong, and he could, Claude thinks, make it hurt if he wanted. But he doesn't want to. 

This is all very melodramatic, two naked submissives with their pasts stripped down to nothing, aching for something they don’t think they deserve.

“Enough,” Felix says, after that one single strike. “I won’t do this.” He turns and throws the belt toward Claude. “Hit him yourself if you want. But I won’t. And I don’t care how dominant you are, I won’t do it.”

“Felix. Pick that up and bring that to me,” Claude says, voice like steel, as sharp as he can make it. 

Felix does it, gracelessly, sloshing through the water to pick up the leather belt and approach Claude at the shore. He holds the belt out, and Claude takes it from him with a nod.

“Good. Kneel.”

“I -- what? Why? Are you going to beat me for not --”

Claude reaches out and grabs Felix by the hair, pulling sharply. “I said, _kneel._ ”

He does, breathing hard, falling to his knees in the water. Claude keeps his head pulled back with a hand in his hair, staring at him until Felix shifts his gaze down.

Good.

“Dimitri,” Claude says. “Come here.”

Dimitri doesn’t fight him, just turns and strides through the water until he’s standing behind Felix. Claude gentles his voice a bit though he keeps his hand tight in Felix’s hair.

“Kneel behind him,” he says, and nods in satisfaction when Dimitri sinks easily to his knees in the water behind Felix. “Good. You see the scars you left?”

“Yes,” Dimitri chokes out. “I see them. Felix, I -- I’m so sorry --”

“Don’t you dare fucking apologize to me, not now,” Felix snarls, and he’s so hard up for pain he’s pulling against Claude’s hand in his hair. It doesn’t do anything but frustrate him, though.

“You want something, you ask _me_ for it,” Claude tells him. “You want the back of my hand? Ask me.”

“Do it,” Felix hisses, all tense and trembling, Dimitri tall and broad behind him, watching with his eye wide and his chest heaving from emotion.

Claude backhands him, and Felix's cloudy eyes clear immediately. He breathes out, easy, his shoulders relaxing immediately. 

Claude rubs a thumb over Felix’s lower lip, gives him an actual smile and watches the way Felix shivers. Maybe he likes praise more than he wants to pretend, but now isn’t the time. “Dimitri, show him you’re sorry for what you did.”

“How, I -- how can I do that,” Dmitri says. He stares at Claude with a naked, hungry expression -- if only he liked being slapped, it would be easy to settle him.

“You gave him pain, before. Say you’re sorry, give him pleasure. Kiss it and make it better.” Claude pulls Felix’s head back, leans in and kisses him. 

Felix scoffs, but his bright amber eyes are still sharp, still clear, when Claude pulls back. He lets go and walks into the water, unconcerned about the water on his boots, his pants, and goes to stand behind Dimitri. “Go on. Kiss him. Put your hands on him. Your ghosts aren’t here, Dimitri. No one’s here but us.”

***

_No one’s here but us._

Dimitri hasn’t prayed since his father’s ship sank what feels like a lifetime ago, but now, as he kneels before Felix’s scarred back, he does. He prays, as he brushes his fingers over the whip weal he left on Felix’s skin, that Claude is right. That it’s true. That he’s alone.

That his father’s voice has only ever been that of a beast, a skeletal creature using his memory for its own purposes.

Felix is breathing hard, but slowly, long measured breaths that pull at his skin, and Dimitri lets out a long, ragged sigh. Clouds build on the horizon, skirting the edges of his sight, and a wind rolls over the water, bringing the scent of the sea.

Dimitri presses his lips to the lightest scar, a thin line that reaches up his right shoulder.

“The first time I kissed you,” Dimitri says, and Felix holds his breath, stiffens under his lips, “I was eight, and I was leaving for Fhirdiad. You wouldn’t stop crying.”

Claude’s hands are warm on Dimitri’s shoulders, steadying him. Anchoring him. Dimitri holds Felix’s bare hips, gently, ready to let go if Felix wants him to.

“I kissed your forehead until you laughed,” he says. Felix’s breath stutters out. Shaky. Broken. Dimitri kisses another scar, where the whip cut Felix’s skin open. “The second time I kissed you, I’d pushed you off the climbing tree into the water, and you fell on Sylvain, and you said—“

Felix curls his fists on his thighs.

“You said you were bruised, so I kissed it better.” He smiles at the memory, of Sylvain sulking in the corner with a cut of meat over his black eye, Ingrid still crying with laughter.

“The third time,” Dimitri says, kissing a ridge of scars. “You—“

“Don’t.” Felix’s voice is tight, thin, a string pulled taut.

“Keep going,” Claude says. Dimitri slides his hands to Felix’s thighs, and Felix grabs them, holds them tight.

“You were mad because El—“ Claude’s fingers flex, slightly, on his shoulders. “Because El was dancing with me, and I kissed your. Your hand…”

Felix threads his fingers through Dimitri’s, safe under the water of the spring. Dimitri kisses a scar low on his back, trails his tongue up his spine, feels Felix shiver.

“The next time I kissed you,” Dimitri says, and pauses over the scar on Felix’s left shoulder, pale as the cut of a blade through the clouds. “The last time I kissed you, before I was lost. You were standing on the dock at Fraldarius, and you were shaking.”

Felix tightens his hold on Dimitri’s hands and bows over his knees. He’s trembling, gasping as softly as he can, his dark hair trailing in the water.

“I told you I loved you,” Dimitri says.

“Do you?” Claude asks. The dominance in his voice keeps Dimitri steady, holds him there, stops him from breaking apart even as Claude’s hands slip from his shoulders. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him,” Claude says.

“I love you,” Dimitri whispers, and blinks as Claude pours water from his cupped palms over Dimitri, letting it slide down his hair and over his cheek like rain, like a kiss, a benediction. “I love you, Felix.”

“Declare your allegiance now, Dimitri,” Claude says, as thunder rolls on the horizon. “Is it to the dead?”

“No,” Dimitri says, as Claude pours water over his brow a second time. Felix squeezes his fingers so tight he winces, leans forward, bowing over him. “No. I owe nothing to the dead.”

“Say it again. Reject their service.”

“I owe nothing to the dead,” Dimitri says again. “I revoke. I revoke their service. Felix, I swear, I promise you, I love you, I—“

Felix lets out a low, guttural cry, wrenches his hands free of Dimitri. He turns in the shallow water and takes Dimitri’s face with both hands, his fingers shaking. His eyes are bright with tears, and his face is a ruin of them, red-cheeked and gasping—but Dimitri only gets a glimpse before Felix kisses him, kneeling here in this lonely corner of the world, far from the dock where Felix last saw him, so many years ago.


	7. Chapter 7

Claude watches the two of them kissing in the water, then glances up at the sky. The storm is gone, leaving the brilliant streaks of color as the sun starts to finally set. There’s no rumble of distant thunder, no lightning, just this. Two people who were torn apart by something terrible and dark, finding the light in each other to lead them back. 

Claude reaches out and strokes his fingers through Dimitri’s hair, and he’s sure that his touch is barely registering at all. The pure, honest and open _yearning_ between the two of them is tangible. They’re kissing like they might die if they stop, and up until this point in his life Claude would have sworn that was just hyperbole, the kind of thing you read about in books but no one ever felt that way in real life. 

He’s been told a thousand times the story of how his parents met, his mother sneaking into a barrel of silks and ending up on his father’s ship. They’d apparently driven each other mad until they’d settled their differences with a swordfight under the moonlight on the deck of the White Wyvern, the flagship of the Almyran military. 

He’s heard this story a thousand times, about his mother’s battle-lust and his father nearly toppling off the bow of the ship into the sea as he matched her blade, and it’s not a secret that the King of Almyra is as in love with his feisty wife as he is with their submissive, Salma. Claude lost track of the number of times he and his brothers would race around the ship and find their parents either dueling or kissing.

That sort of passion seems dangerous to Claude, who’s spent most of his life smiling and downplaying the extent of his own natural dominance. His mother’s never done that a day in her life, and his father’s dominance is the sort that could shake the sky if he wanted to, meaning he’s never found it necessary to hide it. Salma understands, though. She knows, more than anyone, the sorts of things you have to give up, or become, in order to survive in a world that doesn’t always want you. 

Dimitri makes a sound, eager and heated, and Claude blinks as he realizes he’s about to press Felix back in the water and climb on top of him. “Hey.” He pulls on Dimitri’s hair. “Let’s not end your touching reunion by drowning him by accident, all right? Let’s head inside.” 

“All right,” Dimitri says, pulling back. His voice is soft, and when he turns to stare up at Claude, there’s something so honest and grateful on his face that Claude almost looks away. 

_I’m using you. I’m using you both. I did this because I can’t risk you pulling my ship apart with your bare hands or your angst. It doesn’t matter what flag I’m flying, I’m a pirate through-and-through._

“Dimitri.” Claude reaches out and takes Dimitri’s chin in his fingers. “Will you let me collar you?” 

“I,” says Dimitri, flushed and distracted. “Yes, of course.” 

“All right. Then we’ll do it proper, a true sea collaring, a year and a day. After that, you’re free to give it back, but until then, the only dominant you answer to is me. All right?” 

“Yes, of course,” says Dimitri. He smiles, and something knocks around Claude’s chest, unwelcome and too-hot. “What a strange thing that you knew just what to do.” 

“I’m a smart guy,” says Claude, and reaches down to unbuckle the leather at his thigh where he keeps his dagger. The sheath slides off and he uses the strap as a makeshift collar, buckling it tight on Dimitri’s neck. It was his father’s, a gift when Claude left for Garreg Mach, and while it fits Dimitri like it was made for him. 

“There,” he says, and watches as the rest of the tension bleeds out of Dimitri, into the cold, clear water of the springs. He’s never collared anyone before, and it feels both strangely intimate and unreal. Claude leans in and presses a kiss to the back of Dimitri’s neck, over the leather. “Thank you for doing this.” 

“Thank _you_ ,” Dimitri says, voice trembling with so much naked emotion that Claude isn’t sure how to process it. 

“All right. Let’s head for the cabin over there.” 

Claude shivers a bit in his wet clothes -- it’s cool up here, with the sun almost down -- and moves to the sloping bank of the springs. It takes the two of them a bit to drag themselves out of the water, and they’re not even shivering -- Faerghans, of course they’re not -- and Claude heads toward the small cabin nearby. 

It’s apparently where his aunt and uncle first declared a truce when they were marooned here, years ago. Claude wonders if everyone in his family is just doomed to find love by accident, and then goes still as he stares at the two men he literally pulled out of the sea and saved from a curse. 

Oh _no_. 

“I’ll start a fire,” Claude says, while his world tips and goes upside-down for a moment. He remembers Salma telling him, once, with her gentle voice and sea-dark eyes, _when the sea gives you blessings, Khalid, you take them._

His father was rescued by Salma when he was a child, after his own father cast him to the waters. His mother showed up on the ship in a barrel. Nader found his wife after a naval battle washed them both ashore. If this is how his family finds their consorts, he’s probably doomed. 

“We don’t need a fire, it isn’t cold,” Felix says, dazed, blinking at him as his dark, wet hair drips in his face. He has Dimitri wrapped around him like a blanket, big and blond and looking like he might pitch Claude over the side of the island if he tried to separate them. 

“We don’t all have a giant princely blanket, Felix,” says Claude. 

“Oh, Claude, I’m so sorry,” says Dimitri, in his deep rumbling voice. When he’s not possessed by raging spirits, he’s almost painfully earnest. “Please, if you require warmth, I am happy to share mine.” 

“I’m good,” Claude says, and watches as they last about four more seconds before turning to each other like the moon turns the tides. They’re both naked, and Dimitri draws Felix in and touches him like he’s precious, smiling, and Felix -- _Felix_ , fighty, angry Felix -- melts like a candle as Dimitri strokes his face, his hair, staring at him like he hung the stars themselves. 

He leaves them there and goes to retrieve their clothes and supplies from the bank. Claude expects to spend the rest of the night sharpening his arrows and finding poison berries to tip them with while those two fuck out their feelings on the bed in the cabin. 

Instead, he gets back and finds a fire going, Felix wrapped in a blanket and Dimitri -- naked and gorgeous in the firelight -- going through the supplies. “We do have what appears to be enough for a hasty stew, though I am sure I could hunt if necessary.” 

“It’s fine, I - are you two -- didn’t you --?” Not used to being a loss for words, Claude deposits everything on the table and stares. “I expected you’d be busy.” 

“Ah, well,” says Dimitri. He glances at Felix. “It doesn’t seem all that fair, to you.” 

“I kind of expected it,” Claude says. He taps the side of his head. “Smart, remember?” 

“Not that smart,” says Felix, without any bite. 

‘What Felix means,” Dimitri says, “is that we would like to say thank you for what you did for us.” 

Once, when Claude wasn’t much younger than he is now, his sweet, horrible wyvern thought to buck him as she dove for a marlin in the water. He feels much the same now as he did then; Weightless, grasping for a ribbon, for the saddle, for balance, as the wind blows in his face and the sea barrels towards him. He considered all his options, going into this. The possibility of failure. Of the storm catching them, of his clever little schemes not being quite enough. He hadn’t factored in gratitude.

“The show you put on earlier was thanks enough,” Claude says, but it’s a weak lie, and Dimitri just smiles, touches the collar at his neck. He crosses the room, sinks to his knees, and wordlessly starts unlacing Claude’s boots.

Claude tries not to let the hitch of his breath show, but he can still see the knowing smile behind Dimitri’s hair.

“Let us take care of you,” Dimitri says. “Please.”

For the first time in his life, Claude doesn’t know what to say.

Dimitri takes off Claude’s boots and sets them by the fire. He tuts over Claude’s pants, which are damp from the spring, and Claude smiles slightly as Dimitri lifts his foot as though it were a blade in need of polishing. He pulls up a chair by the fire, and when Claude settles into it, stretching his legs by the hearth, Dimitri bends down to kiss him before he stops, his lips an inch from Claude’s own.

“You may,” Claude says, and he can feel the smile on Dimitri’s lips before Dimitri is drawing away again, fetching a pillow from the dark bedroom. 

Felix rolls his eyes.

“He’ll have you draped in furs if you don’t stop him,” Felix says. He’s still staring at them from under his blanket, eyes watchful. “Don’t think he’s had a proper dominant to serve before. He’s gonna put himself under.”

Claude smiles as Dimitri returns, placing the pillow at Claude’s feet and kneeling for him, easy as anything. “I don’t believe I’ve had a proper service submissive before, either. It’s nice. I can see the appeal.”

Felix scowls. “Goddess, you’ll both be insufferable.”

“Probably. Aren’t you going to thank me, too, sweet thing?” Claude asks, and grins at Felix’s sullen look of outrage. “Because you look like you’d rather punch me in the face than kneel for me.” 

“You’re not wrong.” 

“ _Felix,_ ” Dimitri says, glancing over at him. “Claude’s been very helpful.” 

“Sure.” Felix’s smile is grim. “For his own reasons.” 

“I’ve not made a secret of that,” Claude says. He shrugs. “I’ve got things I need to do, and you two being star-crossed lovers in a melodrama from the Royal Almyran Opera wasn’t helping.” 

“Don’t make him something he isn’t, Dimitri,” Felix says, eyes narrowed. He pulls the blanket around himself. “He’s not in this for us.” 

“Nevertheless, Felix,” Dimitri says, and he’s not a dominant but he _is_ a king. “We did benefit from his assistance.” 

“You just want to fuck him,” says Felix, and as caustic as he sounds, there’s still a hint of fondness in his voice. He’s barely looked away from Dimitri this entire time. 

Dimitri smiles, and it’s such a jarring difference from that scowling, enraged creature that Claude remembers from his ship that it gives him whiplash. “Oh,” Dimitri says, “and you don’t? Felix. I know the kind of dominant you want, the sort of...ah. Handling, you enjoy.” 

Felix huffs. “I’m a masochist, Dimitri, you can just say it.” 

A moment passes between them, and Claude sees their complicated, tangled history inside of it; Dimitri remembering the whip, Felix remembering how it had aroused him despite his anger, his sorrow. 

“Well, then I fail to see why you’d be so recalcitrant about Claude _handling_ you.” 

“He doesn’t like me,” Claude says, in answer. 

Dimitri blinks. “He gave you his token. He sails with you. I can’t imagine that’s true.” 

“I’m right _here_ ,” says Felix. “And I don’t. Like him.” 

“Felix!” Dimitri sounds shocked, as if Claude hadn’t tied him to a mast in a storm, kicked him, threatened his life if he didn’t obey. 

“I don’t need him to like me,” says Claude. “I just need him to do what I say.” 

Felix turns his face away, but that only lasts for a second as Dimitri puts the pillow on the floor and kneels in front of Claude. He gives Claude such an earnest, hopeful look that Claude feels something burn hot in his chest. He can deal with Felix’s rancor and his suspicious nature, but Dimitri’s honest need is hitting him in the throat like an arrow. 

Claude leans in and runs his fingers through Dimitri’s hair. “You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Yes, Claude. I do. But that’s not why I want this.” Dimitri leans into his touch, his voice low. “I have been so long in the service of the damned. Let me do this for someone who is flesh and blood. Alive.” He presses his mouth to Claude’s palm. 

Claude gives a quiet inhale. “Of course. But Dimitri, you serve, you do not command.” He gives Dimitri’s hair a tug. “I’d like to take my pleasure of you, but your cock, this time, I think.” 

He needs to be driven out of his own head, there’s too much here that feels heavy, weighted, _significant_ \-- Claude can’t stop thinking about old legends and his family’s history, how his mother stood up to a goddess and saved their family from an ancient curse. He has too much to do to be distracted by whatever is happening here, with the three of them. 

“I -- if you wish it,” Dimitri says, his one good eye wide. Claude can see the shine of Dimitri’s glass eye through the mess of his shaggy blond hair. “How would you have me, ah, service you?” 

“Fuck me, you mean?” Claude laughs, shaking his head. “You’re something else, Dimitri. Why don’t you sit here, and I’ll use you just like I want?” 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, breath catching. “Yes.” 

Smiling, Claude leans in and kisses him again. He knows Felix is watching, so he makes it showy, takes his time, pulls Dimitri’s head back until he’s gasping into Claude’s mouth. “He wants you so badly,” he says, to Dimitri. “But I’m going to have you first.” 

“You fucking prick,” Felix says, but there’s heat there, in his voice. Perhaps that’s why he’s so angry. He’ll hate watching Claude use Dimitri like a toy for his pleasure, but only because of how hot it’s going to get him. 

“Maybe if you behave, you can do more than sit there and glare,” Claude says, pulling back with another stroke over Dimitri’s hair as he steps away from the chair. He finishes undressing, watching as Dimitri settles into the chair as instructed. 

It’s such a change from the wild creature who snarled and pulled at chains, sea-lashed and feral. He looks lovely in the firelight, big body all muscles and tangled blond hair, some strange mythical creature made flesh. 

He pauses by Felix, wrapped in his blanket, pointedly staring into the fire. A masochist, he’s learned by now. Claude reaches down and takes him by the hair, harder than he did with Dimitri, gives it a sharp pull. 

Felix’s shoulders relax. Ah. 

“Don’t think I can’t tell you need someone to see to you,” he says. “You might not like me, but we both know I can put you under.” 

“Do we know that?” Felix asks. “I know you can talk. That’s about it.” 

“Look at you,” Claude says, softly, pulling Felix’s hair back. “Hard already and I’ve barely done anything. You should be warm enough. Lose the blanket and kneel on the pillow. Watch me take my pleasure of Dimitri. Suffer pretty enough and I might let you join us.” 

Felix scoffs. It’s such a clear ruse, begging for a slap, and Claude wonders if he’s feeling generous enough to give it to him. He looks back at Dimitri, watching them with a clear expression of pure hunger, and mm. Maybe it can’t hurt. 

Claude slaps him, hard, across the face. Felix’s breath hitches, and he does it again. “Aren’t you going to let me hear how much you like it?” 

Felix has such a lovely glare, those sly amber eyes brightening like jewels, looking even brighter against the red of his face from Claude’s slap. “I will if you do it hard enough.” 

“Oh, Felix,” Dimitri says, but there’s a hint of fondness there in his voice. 

It makes Felix’s eyes go brighter, and Claude realizes it’s because he’s near tears. He smiles, leans in, bites at the edge of Felix’s ear. “Has it been a long time since you heard him sound like that? About you?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Felix breathes, and he’s trembling. 

“I’ll hit you,” Claude murmurs. “I’ll _backhand_ you to the floor. I’ll tie your hands behind your back and use my belt around your neck like a leash. All you need to do is ask me for it.” 

“Goddess,” Felix breathes. “I hate you.” 

“I know you don’t mean that.” Claude smiles and kisses just below Felix’s ear; the gentle touch makes him jerk away, more frustrating than anything. “Hard up little masochist. I wonder if you’ll ever tell him how many times you jerked off thinking about him whipping you.” 

Felix makes a sound like he’d enjoy feeding Claude to a group of hungry sharks. “Hurt me, please, _fuck_ you, please.” 

“See? That wasn’t very hard, was it?” Claude pulls back, pats him on the mouth -- then backhands him to the floor so hard his hand stings. 

Felix doesn’t fall over, but he jerks from the blow and lilts sharply to the side, catching himself before he falls to the floor. 

“Better?” Claude asks. 

Felix nods, once. “Thank you.” He glances up at Claude, but he can only hold his gaze for a moment before he shifts it down. 

“Put your hands behind your back,” Claude says, “and keep them there.” He uses his belt and affixes it around Felix’s neck, buckling it and leaving enough slack to use as a lead. “Open up,” he says, and smacks the leather end against Felix’s mouth. “Sometimes when you talk you piss me off.” 

Felix glares, but he takes the leather in his mouth and bites it like he wishes it was Claude’s tongue. 

Claude points to the hard floor, near the bed. “Kneel there. Be good and I’ll let you kneel on the pillow. For now, ache a little for me. I think I’ve earned it.” 

Kneeling all trussed up with his belt and scarf, gagged like he is -- it’s clearly calming Felix down, his body settling and his breathing slowing. 

Now that he’s taken care of that, Claude turns back to Dimitri. “You’re so patient, look at you.” There’s still a hint of that wildness there, maybe always will be. But the man waiting for him, naked and gripping hard at the sides of the chair, cock already hard from watching Claude settle Felix, is most certainly a man more than anything else. No hint of that curse in his sky-blue eye, the open, honest _want_ on his face. 

Claude finds a small vial of oil in the drawer, then climbs on Dimitri’s lap and faces him, opening the vial and tipping it to drip oil all over Dimitri’s hard cock. “Mm. That’s lovely. Stroke yourself for me, go on, let me watch.” 

He knows this is going to frustrate Felix, who won’t be able to really see with Claude facing Dimitri, but that’s just an added bonus. He tilts his head, brushing his own hair out of his face as he watches Dimitri slide his own hand up and down his very impressive cock. 

Claude tips his face up and kisses him. “Does it feel good?” 

“Mm,” Dimitri says, gasping a little. “I -- it does, yes, it’s been...some time.” 

“I know. I made you come on the ship, but did _they_ ever do that for you?” Claude knows Dimitri isn’t into pain, not like Felix, but he’s feeling a sudden possessiveness, a competitive urge to _prove he is a better dominant than the ghosts of the sea that tried to take you_ , and he’s too buzzing on putting them both under to care. 

He grabs Dimitri’s hair and pulls his head back, hard but not painful, just firm. He also slaps him on the face, and gets a startled look and a gasp -- and Dimitri’s hand speeds up on his cock, moving faster. “I asked you a question. Did they? Did they let you feel good? The whole point of submitting, of being collared --” here, he reaches out and tugs the leather around Dimitri’s neck -- “is that you’re supposed to like it. Want it. Did you ever?” 

“I --” Dimitri blinks at him, breathing hard. 

“Did you? Did they do anything but take? That’s not how this works.” Claude is practically grinding himself against Dimitri’s thigh, now. “Use your fingers, get me ready for you.” 

Dimitri looks -- confused, maybe. He seems distracted by the questions, by Claude’s hand in his hair, by the request...but only for a moment. His one eye sharpens and he nods, saying, “Yes, of course, Claude, as you wish,” before he slides his hand around the curve of Claude’s hip to dip between his legs, large, blunt, oil-covered fingers seeking his hole. 

“And answer me,” Claude says, though his voice goes a little breathless when Dimitri slides one of his fingers inside him. He leans up a bit, hands on Dimitri’s shoulders, hoping Felix can see what Dimitri is doing. “Did they? Did they give you anything?” 

“They -- no,” Dimitri whispers, soft, ashamed. “They only demanded. Only took.” 

“Do you think I’ll do that?” 

“You - no,” Dimitri says, finger gently sliding in, out. He won’t meet Claude’s eyes. “I don’t think so.” 

Claude pulls one hand from Dimitri’s shoulder and tips his face up. “Look me in the eye when I ask you a question.” 

Dimitri’s one sky-blue eye meets his. “I don’t think you’ll do that.” 

“I won’t.” He grabs Dimitri’s chin. “Felix knows. I gave him what he needed, I just made him ask me for it. Didn’t I, Felix?” He puts enough command in his voice to get an answer, since Felix is, by and large, far more fighty of a submissive than Dimitri. 

Felix mumbles something that sounds like _eventually_ around the leather, and Claude smiles briefly when he hears it. 

“I said to get me ready for your cock, Dimitri,” Claude orders. “I’ve seen it. I’m going to need you to use more than one finger.” 

“Ah. Yes, of course.” Dimitri shifts beneath him, grabs Claude’s hip with his free hand, moves him about as he resettles to start fucking him with two fingers. 

Claude throws his head back and moans. “Yes, that’s it -- mm. Your ghosts didn’t use you like this, that’s -- ah -- how you should have known they weren’t real. What fool would have you and that cock and not use it as often as possible.” 

“I’m not -- that’s -- ah,” Dimitri says “I’m glad you - I -- Claude, please, may I touch you,” Dimitri begs, sweetly, while he’s fucking Claude open with two fingers. 

“Yeah,” says Claude, and kisses him. 

For a long few moments they kiss with increasing fervor as Dimitri works him open; by the time Claude’s ready to take him, his own cock is aching and Dimitri is panting against his mouth. Claude pulls back, takes Dimitri by the collar and jerks it, hard. “Don’t ever confuse me with the ones you served before you took my collar, Dimitri.” He smacks him hard across the face. “Understand?” 

There’s a mumble of something from behind him, but Claude doesn’t bother with it; he waits, smacks Dimitri again -- it’s nothing that would make Felix flinch, more to make a point than cause any pain. 

“I understand,” Dimitri says, and settles beneath him in a slow exhale. 

“Good.” Claude takes his face in two hands and kisses him, forceful and hot, then raises up, climbs off Dimitri’s lap, and swings himself around. 

He grins at the sight of Felix, watching them with a flushed face and wide eyes and a hard cock standing between his legs. Claude holds the eye contact and gets himself into position. “Hold your cock for me to use you properly, Dimitri.” 

He can feel Dimitri’s aching rush of breath against his back, spilling warm over his skin as he sinks down on Dimitri’s cock. It’s -- large, of course, and it’s been a bit since Claude’s done this, so it takes some time to work it all the way inside. 

The whole time, he can see Felix’s chest rise and fall with his quickening breath, and imagining the imprint of Felix’s teeth in the leather makes Claude moan, which makes him slide the last bit of way down onto Dimitri’s cock. 

“That’s, mmm, I’m going to make it a priority to get my use out of this,” Claude says, adjusting to the stretch of it, his legs splayed wantonly and draped across Dimitri’s. He tilts his head back, laughing outright at the look on Dimitri’s face. “Feels good, yeah? Let me hear you. You’re supposed to like it, too.” 

Dimitri gives him a sheepish look, then nods. “It - feels very good, yes, you’re so. Tight, and hot around me.” 

Claude shivers; Dimitri’s lovely deep voice is a rumble, his hands are still grasping the sides of the chair like a good submissive and Claude can feel his thighs shaking beneath him. “You can touch me, go on. You’ve been so good for me, Dimitri. Such a good boy.” 

Dimitri is taller, broader than Claude in every way...but the praise works on him like pain does with Felix, and gets the loudest moan yet from him as Claude starts moving on top of him. Dimitri’s hands run over his back, his chest, his abs...before settling on his hips, big helps gripping tight and helping him move. 

He tilts his head, watching Felix as he bounces on Dimitri’s cock with Dimitri helping him, and feels Dimitri press hot, open-mouthed kisses on his neck.

“Use me, yes,” Dimitri breathes, so soft that Claude doesn’t know if he’s even aware he’s said it. 

“I will.” Claude reaches back, grabs Dimitri’s hair, and rests his weight back against him. With his other hand, he strokes himself and plays with his cock, his balls, making a show of it as he lets himself make sounds from how good it feels. 

“Felix,” Claude says, smirking at him. “Why don’t you come over here and use that sharp tongue of yours for something I like, yeah?” 

Felix tenses as if he’s going to raise up and walk, but Claude -- gasping as Dimitri’s cock hits him _just right_ \-- slams a hand on Dimitri’s knee, grinding himself down hard and saying, “No. I want you to _crawl_.” 

***

This is probably revenge. 

Felix doesn’t see what else it can be, with Claude riding Dimitri’s cock like it’s fucking the breath right out of him, looking at Felix as though he can see what it’s doing to him to be denied Dimitri for so long, to lose him and find him again, only to wait on his knees like a good submissive and watch him fuck another. 

But maybe it’s deeper than that. He remembers the way Claude’s smile faltered when Felix said what he thought of him in the bath, the uneasy distance he kept between them on the way to the cabin. Dimitri, watching the door through which he’d left, brow furrowed. _There’s something lonely about him._ As though Dimitri understands loneliness, when he hasn’t been alone in his own head for years. 

If this is revenge, then Felix has something Claude wants. Something he hasn’t had before. Something to envy. It’s a heady feeling, this power, like letting go of a rope in a game of tug-of-war, and Felix struggles with the urge to fight, to make Claude climb off Dimitri and drag him across the floor. 

Instead, Felix lets go. He drops to his hands and knees, and there, he can see Claude starting to fall off balance. He expects a fight, so Felix doesn’t give him one. He crawls across the bare boards of the cabin, his gaze fixed on Claude’s hand on his cock, until he’s kneeling at Dimitri’s feet. Claude grinds on Dimitri’s lap, one hand in his hair, keeping his face lifted just enough to see Felix kneeling there, hands fisted on his thighs.

Felix never has been one for sweet nothings. “What is it you want.”

Dimitri sighs, but Claude slides his fingertips over Felix’s lips, pushes between them. “You know what I want. Put your mouth on me, Felix, let me use your throat the way I use your captain.”

Felix doesn’t let him finish. He talks too much, anyways, always going the roundabout path when he could just cut a straight line, and Felix sits up on his knees and takes the head of Claude’s cock in his mouth, runs his tongue down the length of it, gaze lowered. Claude makes a soft, pleased sound and clenches his fingers in Felix’s hair, and rides up Dimitri’s cock so his own bumps the back of Felix’s throat. Tears prick the corners of Felix’s eyes as his throat tightens, and then Claude is taking up a steady rhythm again, riding Dimitri while Felix gags and moans and tries to relax his throat, to let him in. 

He’s slipping under, he can feel it, helplessly attempting to bob his head even as Claude speeds up just to fuck with him, or maybe to fuck with Dimitri, who’s whispering against Claude’s neck and struggling not to move. His thighs are shaking, and when he speaks, Claude moans and grabs his hand, pressing it to Felix’s shoulder. 

Felix stills. Dimitri is bent over Claude, his eye dark, hair hanging in his face, but he’s looking at Felix. He touches Felix’s neck, gently, sliding his fingers over the belt Claude looped there, and Felix closes his eyes tight and tries to focus on the weight of Claude’s cock, the ache of his own untouched erection. Claude tugs at his hair, and Felix knows it’s supposed to be a comfort. Like it has been all day, even when Felix was still trying not to grind Sylvain’s face in the grass before the meeting. Claude must have a thousand motives for anything he does, but he’s still here, with his hand in Felix’s hair, having dragged them halfway up a fucking mountain to bring Dimitri back to him. 

“Stay,” Claude orders, and presses Felix to him as he fucks himself on Dimitri’s cock, as Dimitri _curses,_ and then Claude’s spilling down his throat and Felix is dragged up for air, head tilted back. Claude watches him through half-lidded eyes as Felix’s throat works, and he swipes his hand over Felix’s damp cheeks. Then, because he’s Claude, he tastes the salt on his fingers, rides Dimitri until he’s begging in broken whispers against his neck. 

“Come for me, sweet thing,” he says. Dimitri bows his head and clenches his hand on Felix’s shoulder as he comes, and Claude strokes Dimitri’s hair, tucks wild strands of it behind his ear. Dimitri kisses his back, and Claude smiles so warmly it actually reaches his eyes, this time, twisting in Dimitri’s lap to kiss him properly. 

Felix kneels there, tears drying on his cheeks, his breathing short, drifting in the dark. A hand touches his cheek, and there are lips on his—Not Dimitri’s, which are so tentative, begging permission even when Felix is desperate for it. Claude holds his hip as he kisses him, spreads Felix out onto the floor, and Felix blinks slowly up at the shadowed figure crouching over him.

“You’ve been so good for me,” Claude says. “It’s almost as though I’ve done something to deserve it.”

Felix opens his mouth to bite out a sharp retort, and squints up at Claude. He’s being roundabout again, edging around what he really means to say.

“You did,” Felix says, and Claude raises his brows. “You do. Deserve it. Did someone… tell you.” His breath hitches as Claude’s hand glides over his hip, towards his cock. “Otherwise, or. What.”

“Look at you,” Claude says, kissing him again as he wraps his fingers around Felix’s cock. “Fuck you up enough, and you actually care.”

That isn’t an answer, but Claude’s hand starts to move, and Felix makes an anguished, muffled sound against Claude’s lips. His mouth hangs open, his eyes threatening to flutter closed, and only Claude’s other hand tugging at the belt keeps him from sinking into the dark. 

“Good boy,” Claude says. “You’ve been so good, come for me, then, let me see you.”

Felix’s hips jerk when he comes, panting with the breaking crest of his release, and Claude leans down to kiss him on the forehead. Felix groans—who the hell _is_ he, why does he surround himself with fucking _romantics_ —and drags Claude down by the neck. Claude laughs a little at that, and Dimitri steps over them with a rag and water from the pump to settle down like a living furnace on Felix’s other side.

“Didn’t take you for a cuddler,” Claude says.

Felix doesn’t bother to glare. “I’m not.”

“Officially,” Dimitri says. 

“You know what,” Claude says, shoving between Felix and Dimitri, all buzzing energy in his bright, sea-green eyes. “You try to come off as this callous, heartless sailor, but you’re actually almost adorable, aren’t you?”

“Where’s my sword,” Felix says.

Dimitri slaps a hand on Felix’s stomach to hold him down, Felix snarls at him, and Dimitri kisses him again, seemingly just because he can. Felix slowly allows himself to relax into it, lulled by Dimitri’s warm touch and the brush of lips over his cheek and jaw, and bites back a _whine_ when Dimitri gets up to check on the stew. 

*** 

Claude actually leaves for bed by the time the fire has died to embers, because of course he does, skirting around the edges of whatever’s happening between Dimitri and Felix as though he’s still just an outside observer. As though he isn’t a part of this.

“He needs work,” Felix says, when Dimitri comes back from dithering over Claude like a massive, lovestruck puppy. Dimitri looks down at Felix and blinks for a second, then covers his face with a hand.

“Felix.” He gets to his knees, clambering over Felix with his back to the fire. “Claude dragged us up half a mountain just to work through _our_ issues.”

“Yeah, and he thinks he’s immune?” 

Dimitri huffs out a silent laugh and kisses Felix’s neck. He unbuckles the belt around Felix’s throat and slides it free. “Why, Felix, it’s almost as though you care.”

“Don’t.”

“You do.” Dimitri sucks a mark into Felix’s neck, just under the jaw. “Somewhere, deep down, there’s a part of you that wants to, I don’t know, wrap him in blankets and call him precious.”

“The _fuck,_ Dimitri.”

Dimitri buries his face in Felix’s shoulder and wraps his arms around him, breathing in deep. Felix carefully holds him back, fingers skating over thin scars he doesn’t recognize anymore, and Dimitri’s voice rumbles through him.

“I missed you.”

Felix holds his breath until he can’t anymore, and when he twists in Dimitri’s hold, Dimitri rolls onto his back and lets Felix straddle his lap. Felix runs his hands over hard muscle, touches the leather collar at Dimitri’s neck, holds his face in both hands. It’s a different face than the one he remembers, but the look is right. The eye is the same, cold blue and bright with yearning, and when Felix kisses him, Dimitri smiles.

Claude is a fool. He could have this. Does have this, but he’s still keeping it at bay behind that polite smile and affected swagger. What man, Felix thinks, as he swallows Dimitri’s moan, would hold himself back from something like this?

“I want to take you,” Felix whispers, and Dimitri groans at that, kissing him hard and deep so Felix is grinding down on him before they break apart. Felix wonders if Claude is listening. If he regrets closing the door. He thinks of his face falling in the bath, back in the Abyss, the bite of his words as he crouched over him.

The hell is his problem, anyways? Felix never hid what a finicky, troublesome bastard he was, and he still has Dimitri—

“Felix?” Dimitri runs a thumb over Felix’s scowling lips. “You keep looking at the door. Do you want to…”

“No,” Felix says, and kisses Dimitri again. “No, he’s an idiot.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t _Ah_ at me, boar,” Felix snaps, and Dimitri tries to hide a smile, fails, and barks out a laugh. Felix kisses it out of him, and pulls back to search for the oil. 

He takes his time working Dimitri open, teasing him, testing what makes him moan and press his face to the floor, what has him shifting, curling his hands on the boards. He cries out once or twice, and Felix glances up at the bedroom door before he remembers with a start that this shouldn’t be _about_ him, why does he always—

“Oh,” Dimitri says, when Felix brushes up against him, stroking his cock with an oil-slick hand. “Oh, Felix, I—“

“I know,” Felix says, and presses into him. Dimitri’s face goes slack with a shivery gasp, and Felix leans forward over his back to watch his cheeks go red and his lips drag between his teeth as Felix enters him. He’s never seen him like this, so lost in pleasure, and when Felix makes a shallow thrust, Dimitri moans and rocks back against him.

Felix fucks him slowly, the way Felix hates it when he’s on the other side, but it feels right to see Dimitri’s back flex and his hands push against the floor as he moves, the sweat beading on his skin under Felix’s hand. He eases the sounds out of him, the moans and gasps and stammered endearments, and Felix thinks of the ghosts who thought to claim him and kisses the curve of his back, the swell of his muscular shoulders. He pets his hair in a way he’ll never admit to, later, and Dimitri sobs Felix’s name into the floor as he comes with Felix’s hand on his cock and their thighs pressed together, Dimitri’s trembling. Felix runs his hands up Dimitri’s legs and groans out Dimitri’s name as he rides out his own pleasure, panting and hot in the cool night air.

They lie together afterwards, sticky and breathless, but Dimitri is a fastidious man without his ghosts to distract him, and he gets up for the wash basin before Felix is done tracing the line of his back. Felix watches him, submits to his careful touch and soft, lingering kisses, until the sound of a thrush twittering in the bushes makes Dimitri draw back.

“What,” Felix drawls, slowly.

“I think I could stand to bathe,” Dimitri whispers.

“Now? Really?”

“I won’t be long.” Dimitri kisses Felix again. “It’s just… been a lot, you know.”

“Yes.” Felix checks Dimitri’s face, but there’s no sign of his fey nature, no hint that this is anything but Dimitri. “I know.”

“Check on Claude if you can,” Dimitri says, getting to his feet. He doesn’t bother putting on clothes—when he opens the door, he stands naked in the moonlight, his hair almost silver—and Felix watches him carefully close the door behind him, leaving Felix alone with a dying fire.

He glances at the bedroom door again, and slowly gets to his feet. The boards creak as he crosses the room, and when he pushes open the door, he can feel Claude’s gaze on him, dark and watchful. Felix resists the sudden, wild urge to drop to his knees. He can barely see the figure on the bed, but he walks towards Claude steadily, climbs onto the mattress at the foot of the bed. If he were Dimitri, he would kneel for him, whisper pretty words of affection, purr like a cat under his touch. But he isn’t Dimitri, so he says it simply, in his low, dry voice. 

“What do you need?”

***

_You,_ Claude thinks. _I want you to want me like you wanted Dimitri, to soften your edges for me like I could hear you doing, out there, for him._

Felix’s token is still around Claude’s neck. He played with it while he listened to them in the other room. He’d imagined they’d be at it all night, probably. A lot of history, a lot of missed time to make up for. It was nice of them to see to him, but he’d been...something to do out of gratitude. Not because he was wanted. 

And that shouldn’t bother him. He should be used to it by now. Claude uses gratitude like currency, wields it like a blade to get what he wants. They enjoyed themselves, with him. It should be enough. 

But then the door opened, and now, here’s Felix. Asking him what he needs, like a good submissive would, and Claude pauses through what he’s going to say. 

“I need you two to find each other,” he says, at length. “I need to not worry you’re going to draw down on him again when I’m trying to keep us alive fighting that - that thing.” 

“That isn’t what I’m asking you,” Felix says, and his voice is steady, his hands on his thighs. He’s kneeling, naked, and Claude’s mouth waters remembering how much Felix liked pain, being settled. What he looked like coming from Claude’s hand on him. “I’m asking you. What you _need_. Right now.” 

Claude puts an arm behind his head, twirling the token in his fingers. “Are you here to offer yourself as thanks for fixing Dimitri?” 

Felix shakes his head, slightly. “I’m grateful, yes. But that’s not what this is.” 

“You don’t like me, remember?” Claude puts an arm behind his head, twirling Felix’s token in his fingers. It really shouldn’t bother him. He’s used to that, too. 

“Still mad about that, are you?” 

He laughs. “Maybe. You know where to hit a man.” 

“I’m a swordsman first, a sailor second. I know where to navigate and how to strike. And I don’t like the man I saw that night in the bath. This one, I don’t mind as much. The man who put me on my knees and took his pleasure of Dimitri...that man is not one I. I dislike.”   
“They’re both me,” Claude says. “I’m still selfish. Still doing what must be done for my own aims. Do you think that’s different, just because this was something you wanted, too?” 

Felix gives a low laugh. “You’re trying to make me not like you. Is that what you need? My dislike?” 

“What if,” Claude says, dominance roused as it always seems to be around this man. “What I needed was to shove you on this mattress and fuck you?” 

Felix makes a sound. Interested, eager. “I would tell you to make me. I’ll give it to you. If you earn it.” 

“Do you think I can?” 

“Do _you_?” Felix asks, striking true once again. 

Does he? Maybe. “I think I can put you under, make you cry from my cock, make you sob in pleasure. I think I can hurt you just like you want.” 

“You could have done that in Abyss, that night,” Felix says. “We both know you could have. And you didn’t even touch me.” 

“You want to be made to submit, don’t you? You’re a brat _and_ a masochist. Has anyone ever earned it?” 

“No,” Felix says. “Try and be the first.” 

That gets Claude’s blood running hot, as Felix must have known it would. “And what will Dimitri think? If he hears you, being put in your place for me, after what we already did?” 

“I imagine he’ll be jealous,” Felix says. “But he went for a walk. He told me to look in on you.” 

“He’s not your dominant _or_ your captain, remember?” 

“I remember. Do you? Because you’re not acting like either, right now.” There’s just enough light to see Felix’s chin tilt, the challenge in his slight smile. 

He’s enjoying this, Claude realizes. It makes him smile a little and swing his legs over the bed. “You’re not wearing my collar.” 

“Do you want me to?” 

Claude goes up on his knees across from Felix. He can tell Felix is ready for him to bounce the question back, or prevaricate, or talk around it. “Oh, yes,” he says, because it’s true. “I do want to.” He laughs at the startled look that gets from Felix. “What? Do you think I’m lying?” 

“No,” Felix says. “I’m just surprised. I know how I am.” 

“You said you want someone to earn it, so. I’m going to.” Claude reaches out, takes his chin in his fingers. “Everyone knows it’s the submissive who decides who’s worthy of putting a collar on him. Don’t do it until I’ve proven that’s me.” 

“You’re serious,” Felix says. 

Instead of answering, Claude grabs his hair and twists his wrist, pulling hard enough to get a cry from Felix that makes his cock start to harden even more. He drags Felix off his knees and pushes him down to his back on the bed. “Did you fuck him, Felix? Dimitri.” 

“Yes,” Felix says, breathing hard, staring up at him. 

“Did he take your cock for you?” Claude asks, straddling him. He smacks Felix across the face, smiling as Felix moans and arches up against him. “Did he?” 

“Yeah,” Felix moans. “You’re. I like how you, how you do that.” 

“How I smack you, you mean?” Claude tilts his head, grinds lightly against him. “That’s what you like?” 

“Fuck,” Felix moans. His eyes are going vacant already. “Yeah.” 

“I want to do so many things to you,” Claude says, smacking him again. “I want to take my time about it, too. Take you apart. See what makes you scream, makes you cry. Make you beg.” He holds Felix by the throat, where the collar he wants to put there would rest. Will rest. “I collared your Dimitri because I need him to be in his right mind. I’ll collar you because I want you.” 

He tightens his fingers, and Felix gasps, shifting beneath Claude, fingers tightening on the bedding while he lets Claude choke him. “You can touch me,” Claude says. “Go ahead.” 

He eases up and lets Felix catch his breath. Felix drags in air and touches Claude, lightly, over his bare chest. His fingers explore the curve of his shoulders, the swell of his biceps, linger over the token Claude’s wearing around his neck. 

Felix is naked, but Claude’s still wearing his trousers. Felix skirts his rough, callused fingers over Claude’s lower stomach, then lower, over the swell of his cock pressing against his pants. 

“What would you do,” Felix asks, softly. He won’t look at Claude. “If you were going to take your time. With me. To put me under.” 

Claude smiles and takes his chin in his fingers, leans in and kisses him. He takes his time, and makes it...not sweet, that’s not Felix’s style, but maybe a bit less bitey than he would, otherwise. 

“Probably start by fighting to get your collar on you, or maybe some kind of lead,” Claude says, against his mouth. “Since I don’t plan on letting you take it off, once I get it on you.” 

“Fuck,” Felix gasps, again. He’s getting hard, Claude can feel it, and he kisses him with a little more heat before he gets his fingers in Felix’s hair and flips to lay on his back again, pulling Felix on top of him. 

“Maybe I’ll tie you up,” Claude says. “Use the whip on you, but you’ll be tied to my bed and I’ll make you beg for each strike. You’ll be so hard for me, could I make you come that way? I bet I could. You like pain so much but you’d really like to hear how much I like you taking it for me. That’s why it never worked before, isn’t it?” 

Felix just blinks down at him, shivering a bit. “That’s -- yeah,” he says, like maybe he just realized that. 

“I don’t have much I can hurt you with right now, pretty thing,” Claude says. “But you can take my pants off, ride my cock, and if you make it good I’ll tell you more.” 

Felix gets him stripped down efficiently and utterly without a single attempt at teasing or seduction, which Claude finds charming, and hesitates before he takes Claude’s hard cock in his hand. “Go ahead, I said you could touch me.” 

Felix lowers his head, and Claude reaches out to finish undoing the messy remains of his braid so that his hair falls over his face, teasing soft at Claude’s stomach and inner thighs. 

He starts talking, which he’s good at; telling Felix that he’ll whip him, make him cry, scratch up his back, rub salt in the cuts and _that_ makes Felix moan around his cock and grind his erection against the bed. 

“Hard-up little masochist, no one hurts you like you need, do they? Just Dimitri, but that didn’t work like you wanted.” He laughs and pulls Felix’s hair. “You know the difference. I want to hurt you because you like it. Can you come just from pain, Felix?” 

Felix pulls off Claude’s cock and presses his face to Claude’s inner thigh. “I -- Claude, fuck,” he moans, breath hot against Claude’s skin. 

“That’s it, that’s what you want? I’ll ruin you if that’s what it takes. Get you hurt and sobbing at my feet. Kick you with my boots. Tie you to my bed, use you like you’re nothing, just a cock warmer, a cock sleeve, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” 

Felix is practically panting and humping the bed, so Claude figures he’s onto something, here. No wonder he was so angry at Dimitri. The sadistic, callous disregard was there, but without control, without dominance, it was just cruelty without purpose, no intent that it was given because someone wanted it. 

“I can take care of you,” Claude says, softly, winding strands of Felix’s dark hair around his fingers. He wants that, wants someone that’s _his_ , but he does know that Felix, part of him, will always belong to Dimitri. His heart, maybe, though it remains to be seen if it’s all for Dimitri or if there’s room for Claude there, too. 

Though Claude’s never really let anyone but his family into his own, so, maybe that’s fair. 

And besides, he’s getting ahead of himself. He pulls Felix’s hair. “Come on, Felix. Ride my cock, show me how good you’ll be for me.” 

“I’m. You’ll have to. Make me, this is -- you already had me under, it’s not. Not always gonna be. This easy.” 

Claude flails around for some oil near the bed -- which he’d put there before he climbed in, figuring if nothing else, he’d get himself off while listening to the two of them fucking each other. There will be little time for this sort of thing once they leave the island. “I know. Do you want to fight a little more, before you ride me? You can, if you want. I can handle you.” 

“No,” Felix says, taking the oil and giving Claude a look that somehow sears down into his soul, the places he doesn’t ever let anyone else see. “You’ve already done it. For now.” He slicks up Claude’s cock with his oiled fingers and swings a leg over him, and Claude arches up and doesn’t quite catch his moan in time as Felix presses the head of Claude’s cock against his entrance and starts to slide down. 

“You talk a lot,” Felix says, softly, once he’s fully seated. The intensity of how he’s looking at Claude makes Claude’s heart race, and it’s not just because of how tight, how warm, Felix is around his cock. He puts his hands on Claude’s shoulders and starts to ride him, slow and easy. “And you smile too much. For the record that’s -- ah -- that’s who I meant when. When I said I didn’t like you.” 

Claude slaps him lazily, and Felix’s grin is fierce and quick, gone almost as soon as Claude realizes it’s there. 

“I like you like this. Telling me how you’d hurt me. That you want to.” 

“I do,” Claude says, reaching up to curl his fingers around Felix’s throat. “I _will_.”

Felix throws his head back and moans. He’s showing his throat, and Claude can barely catch his breath. He feels a little out of control, and he _could_ flip Felix over on his back and fuck him hard and fast, brutal, choking him with his hand on his neck but Claude doesn’t do that. 

Control doesn’t always have to be so obvious. “Slow down,” he says, all his dominance in his voice. 

Felix slows, panting hard. 

“Get some more oil on your fingers. Stroke yourself while you ride me, that’s it,” Claude murmurs. “Yeah, good, ah, sweet thing, that’s it. I can break you but I don’t even have to do that, do I?” 

“Oh, fuck you,” Felix says, but there’s that little smile again, fierce, as he rides Claude and strokes himself in time.

“You already fucked Dimitri. My submissive. And you didn’t even ask.” He shakes his head, one hand on Felix’s hip, the other idly scratching down his chest. 

“He was. Mine, first,” Felix says, hips shifting, starting to move faster. 

“Doesn’t matter. He’s wearing my collar. And you’re mine, too,” Claude says, starting to get a little distracted. “Aren’t you? Did you want me there, watching, telling you how to do it?” 

“I -- oh,” Felix bites his lip, obstinate. 

Claude gives a husky laugh and smacks him, indulgent. “Well?” 

“Yes,” Felix says, shuddering. “He -- he did, too.” 

Claude likes hearing that. He gives Felix another smack, then slides his fingers in Felix’s mouth, over his tongue. “Go on, you can do it harder.” 

Felix sucks on his fingers and does it, bounces on Claude’s cock and gets his hand moving on himself in time with the movement of his hips. Claude pulls his fingers free and drags them on the side of Felix’s cheek, then grabs Felix’s slim hips in his hands and starts controlling his movement. 

“Gonna -- fuck, I’m so -- so close,” Felix moans, head thrown back, hand sliding quickly up and down his cock. “Can I. Please, fuck, want to come --” 

“Oh, no,” Claude says, laughing. “Not yet.” He doesn’t stop, pushing his hips up and slamming Felix down on his cock. 

“Claude, fuck, please.” Felix’s hand stops moving, and he’s flushed, biting his lip. 

“I didn’t tell you to stop touching yourself, did I?” 

“I -- I’m too close,” Felix says, and there, that note of desperation, that’s exactly what Claude wanted, what he needs to hear to settle his own restless dominance urge. Felix brings it out in him in spades. 

Claude half-sits up, grabs his hair, pulls Felix down and kisses him hard, biting his lip. “Too fucking bad. Don’t stop.” 

“Goddess,” Felix moans against his mouth, shaking. “Please, fuck, _fuck_ \--” 

“I told you I could break you. You’d do anything I wanted if I’d let you come, wouldn’t you?” 

“You’re such a bastard,” Felix says, his whole body shaking. “I -- fuck, I have to slow down, I --” 

“Don’t want to come unless I tell you that you can, huh?” Claude smiles, lets himself fall back on his elbows and grins up at him. “You want to be good for me, don’t you, sweet thing.” 

“Yes, fuck,” Felix is so close that every one of his muscles is tensed up, and he’s so tight around Claude’s cock that it makes Claude’s eyes nearly cross. His face is screwed up and he’s panting, nearly sobbing with the effort of not stopping or coming without permission. 

“I can hurt you with pleasure, do you see?” Claude asks. “You’re gorgeous like this, suffering for me. Dimitri’s made you cry but you hated it, didn’t you? Don’t worry. You can do it for me. I’ll make you. I like it.” 

Felix sobs _please_ again, and Claude thinks about telling him no, seeing what will happen but he’s on edge, himself, just watching this. “Make me come first, and then you can.” 

Felix bounces on top of him, grinds his hips in a slow circle, eyes screwed shut and Claude can just see the edges of his eyes wet with tears. It’s enough to pull Claude’s orgasm from him, twitching under Felix’s desperate form, letting himself be loud and obvious in his pleasure. 

Felix comes before Claude can even get breath to tell him that it’s all right, spilling over his fist and Claude’s stomach with a loud sobbing sound of relief. It’s so hot Claude feels his softening cock give a little twitch, and he’s surprised when Felix sort of half-falls on top of him like he can’t quite help himself. 

“Good,” Claude manages, patting Felix’s sweat-slick back. “That’s -- mmm. So good. Did you like that?” 

“Mm.” Felix lifts his head, and his hair is clinging to his sweaty face, but Claude’s almost positive some of that wetness is tears. He blinks a few times, his amber eyes clear and bright, and smiles at Claude. It’s the sweetest expression Claude’s seen on his face. It makes him look almost like someone else. Someone softer, not yet storm-tossed and weather-worn. “Yeah.”

Claude tips his face up and kisses him. “Me, too.” He gently helps Felix climb off his lap, then presses him to his back on the bed despite his protests, kisses him, and gets out of bed. “Stay there, sweet thing, I’ll get you cleaned up.” Felix is under enough that he’s just lying there, not arguing, and that’s good. 

Rare, but good. Claude stretches, turns toward the window. There’s no sound of a storm, nothing but the calm quiet night and the wind. 

“He’s fine,” Felix says, drowsily, from the bed. “He’ll be back. He’s himself again.” 

“Good,” says Claude. “I’m glad.” He thinks about this as he goes to get water, a rag. This kind of loyalty that Felix’s shown Dimitri, even after everything they’ve been through, is astounding. 

Will putting a collar around Felix’s neck be enough to get that for himself? 

***

The stars are out when Dimitri leaves the cabin. There’s dew on the grass, a soft mist forming from the trees that drape over the hills like a cloak, and Dimitri’s feet sink into the earth as he climbs. 

A woman sits on a stone overlooking the spring. Her long hair stirs in the breeze, and her hands are clasped in her lap, palms up, empty. She doesn’t look back when Dimitri’s shadow crosses hers, but she does lift her chin a little, like she’s testing the air. Dimitri trudges through the grass to face her, and he can see starlight in her eyes, bright pinpricks arrested in the dark. 

“El,” he says. His smile is wan. Her lips don’t move. “I thought that was you. Faerghan thrushes aren’t usually found in this part of the world, so far as I know.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember,” she says. “Sit down, Dima, it hurts to look at you.”

She isn’t looking. Her gaze is fixed on the sky, the distant constellations. Her hair seems to glow in the starlight, as though she were made of it, woven from the firmament. 

Dimitri sinks to his knees at her feet, and Edelgard sighs. She reaches out to hook her fingers under the strap of Dimitri’s collar. 

“So it’s done,” she says.

“I believe so.” Dimitri bows his head as she trails her fingers up his cheek, skating over his glass eye, carding through his hair. Her gaze never leaves the stars. “I do feel… more myself, now. It’s like you to want to check in on me, though. You don’t trust Claude to get the job done?”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Edelgard says. “You know that.”

“No, I don’t.” Dimitri examines her face. He thinks of the girl he knew in Fhirdiad, the one with the quick temper and the mousy brown hair, who took his hand after five minutes of introductions and said, _You would need looking after._ He’d taught her how to climb the roof of the palace to count the stars, kicked up foam on the beach with her, counted the sails of the ships that ringed the port of Fhirdiad. 

_One day,_ she said once, staring out at the ocean, _When my sister is emperor, I’ll come back and we’ll sail around the world together. And we’ll kill pirates, and find gold, and marry mermaids and sea witches. Unless you don’t want to marry any,_ she’d added, magnanimously.

Dimitri had just shrugged. _Sounds dangerous._

Edelgard scowled and shook out her hair. _Everything’s dangerous. But I’ll keep you safe, Dimitri, because you’re mine, and no one hurts what’s mine._

Now, on a hill overlooking the ocean, Edelgard’s snow-white hair is caught by the breeze, and her eyes are distant and cold.

“You used to trust me,” Dimitri says. 

“I used to—” El blinks, hard. “Dimitri. I need your hands.”

He frowns slightly, but offers them to her, and she takes him by the wrists. She draws him up by them, and his fingers twitch as she presses his palms to the hollow of her throat. 

“El.”

“Go on, Dimitri.” Edelgard looks at him, then, and her eyes are not just bright with starlight. She holds his hands to her throat. “It’s what they want. What they demand of you.”

Dimitri holds his breath, his fingers warm around Edelgard’s neck. A wind blows in off the sea, and Edelgard’s mouth thins, her shoulders drawn tight. Dimitri waits for the summons. For the voices to come, pleading, commanding, pushing out the heat of Claude and Felix’s touch that still lingers on his skin.

“Oh, El,” he says, and when Edelgard’s mouth trembles, he instinctively covers it, vaguely remembering how much she hated letting anyone see her cry. She laughs against his hand, and pushes it away so she can kiss his cheek, his forehead, the ragged scar over his brow. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, lips mashed to his temple. Dimitri shrugs, and she pushes back his hair from his face, tilts his chin as though trying to get a better look at him. “Look at you. Collared to a pirate, and you almost look pleased.”

“Would you prefer the alternative?” Dimitri asks. He smiles sidelong. “The ocean’s not far, I can always—” Edelgard smacks his arm. “Ah, perhaps that was out of line.”

“Wildly.” Edelgard sighs. Dimitri leans against her, still kneeling, and she scratches the back of his neck. “Tell me how it was done.”

Dimitri rests his head on her lap as he does, speaking softly in the silence of the hill. Her grip tightens on his hair when he stumbles over what he’d done to Felix, back when the dead had their hold on him, but she says nothing. Just listens, quiet and calm, watching him. 

“I tried, you know,” she says, when Dimitri’s voice fades, unable to explain exactly what happened when they reached the cabin. “To reach you. To fix it.”

“Yes, I suspect you did.” Dimitri looks down. “I’m… I cannot begin to express how sorry I am.”

“Then don’t.” Edelgard tugs at his hair. 

“But I wasn’t there for you,” Dimitri says. “When you were… when your own ship sank, I tried to write, but then I was called to serve with Father, and. I didn’t. Is that when you. Changed your hair?”

Edelgard’s gaze turns glassy, distant, much like Claude’s. “I didn’t dye it.”

There’s a deeper story there, something beyond the official reports Dimitri had heard of in the capital, of Edelgard’s ship taken by pirates, her sisters killed in the hold of a ship that went down in a desperate rescue. It strikes Dimitri, kneeling here with her hands in his hair, that it is cruel of him to take this kindness, to see Edelgard so open and unguarded. 

“I said, don’t,” Edelgard says. “We’ll have time enough. When this is over, and your time with Claude is done.”

“You know he isn’t the only one I’m sworn to,” Dimitri says, carefully. Edelgard gives him a wry look and pats his cheek. 

“Don’t tell him,” she says. “Or do. But only if I can see his face, afterwards. I’m not even supposed to be here—I left that pink-haired demon of his tied to a tree when she tried to follow me.”

“Edelgard!”

“She’ll survive.” Edelgard sighs and shifts slightly. “I’ll have to go untie her soon enough.”

“Yes,” Dimitri says, slowly. He doesn’t lift his head from her knees. It’s been so long since they’ve been able to do this, since they were just two young, slightly awkward kids making promises they couldn’t keep on the edge of the shore. He feels Edelgard’s fingers brush over his eye, and she leans back on the stone, propping herself up on her free arm. 

“Oh, Dima,” she says at last, in a soft, fond voice. “You _would_ need looking after.”


	8. Chapter 8

“What the _fuck_ ,” Hilda says, the second she spies that hateful head of ice-blonde hair. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

Edelgard tilts her head. “That’s quite the mouth you have, Lady Goneril.” 

“This is a fucking pirate island, you cunt,” Hilda hisses, pulling at the ropes. “I don’t have to be a fucking _lady_ , I -- ow!” She glowers, face stinging from Edelgard’s -- frankly lazy -- slap. “You think you’re not getting called names after you tie me to a tree?” 

“I thought you might enjoy the opportunity for laziness that did not require an excuse,” says Edelgard. 

“Like I need an excuse,” Hilda huffs, pulling at the ropes. “Seriously, you are one fucked up bitch, why would you -- why?” 

“Hilda, I had something important to attend to. You and your pretty wet pussy aren’t enough to keep me from attending to them.” Edelgard narrows her lovely stupid eyes at her. “Does that offend you?” 

“The -- no,” Hilda says, truthfully. “Duh. Obviously I also have more important things to do than _you_ and your _moderately_ attractive, _damp_ pussy and --” 

Edelgard stops her not with a slap, this time, but a kiss. 

“You’re infuriating. I could take so many submissives to bed instead of you. They’d beg me to tie them to this tree. They’d do whatever I wanted and thank me for the privilege.” 

“Great,” says Hilda. “Go find one of them, then. _After_ you untie me, you bitch!” 

“But I like you, do you know why?” Edelgard pulls back, smiles, and takes Hilda’s chin in her fingers. “You’re so ungrateful. You don’t even care that I choose to spend my time with you. You think you’re such a delight that you’re honestly angry that I tied you to a tree.” 

Hilda stares at her. “There’s something wrong with you. The way you think. Did you get hit in the head with the mizzenmast or something?” 

“Likely.” She leans in and kisses her again, bites her lip and sucks on it, makes Hilda’s blood heat. “I saw you in the meeting, with that pretty blue-haired submissive at your feet.” 

“Yeah, leave her the fuck alone,” Hilda snaps, outraged all over again at the thought of Edelgard with Marianne. Unless -- well. If Hilda was there, too, it might be all right. No. Wait. No, it wouldn’t. Why is she even thinking that? “You just want to - to steal her, you pirate.” 

“Takes one to know one.” Edelgard starts undoing the knots tying Hilda to the tree. She sounds amused. 

“You’re just mad she’s hotter than your healer _and_ she can talk to sharks. Which means I guess you two could have a conversation.” Hilda pulls free of her bindings the second the rope loosens, then _shoves_ Edelgard. “You ever do that again, I’ll tell Nader you broke parlay.” 

“No one who’s met you for more than four minutes would think that’s true, Hilda,” says Edelgard. “They’d only be surprised I didn’t gag you, too.” 

Hilda tosses her hair. “If you didn’t want -- look, I’m not _making_ you fuck me, or whatever, so stop acting like it.” 

“You are the one who agreed to be tied up, you remember.” 

“I thought you were gonna get me off, not leave me here!” Her eyes narrow. “So you owe me, like, six orgasms. Maybe seven.” 

“You honestly don’t even care what I was doing, do you,” Edelgard asks. 

“No, how many times do you need to hear that?” 

Edelgard gets right up in her face, tilts her head -- and Hilda does notice, with something like distanced interest, that her hair is loose when it almost never is -- and says, “There’s something so amazingly easy about you. Probably because you’re not very complex.” 

“Complex _this_ ,” Hilda says, and takes a swing. 

What happens next is not one of Hilda’s finer moments. Edelgard is not an easy woman to knock over, given her veins are full of lead and her heart is some ungainly, awful thing like a weight or maybe a bag of sand. She staggers back, having made an _oof_ sort of sound when Hilda’s fist hit her in the gut, but it’s not quite enough to get her on the ground. 

“Captain von Riegan should teach you to fight better,” says Edelgard, but there’s enough of a wheeze in her voice that Hilda feels all right about that punch. “Is this really how you want to spend our time?” 

“You know exactly how I wanted to spend our time, then you tied me to a _tree_.” Hilda tries again, but Edelgard really is like some kind of tiny steel statue and even pulling her hair and kicking her leg just makes her laugh. 

Well. Whatever. Hilda switches tactics, because the fighting is making her sweaty and she is _not_ having angry sex on the ground. She gets her hands on Edelgard’s shoulders and pulls her in, kissing her. “We both know what we want, can we just go and do it already?”

Edelgard sighs. “I suppose.” She pulls back, nods toward the shore with the tents. “Bring the rope.” She starts walking and doesn’t look back, 

“Ooh!” Hilda stomps her foot, but she bends down and picks up the rope and follows stupid Edelgard to her stupid tent, muttering about stupid gorgeous women and the stupid choices she makes because of them. 

***

Dedue wakes to a hand in his hair.

He keeps his eyes closed. Ashe is sprawled half on top of him, one leg slung over his stomach, his nose pressed to the side of Dedue’s arm. He kneads Dedue’s hair softly, unconsciously, just his fingers gently flexing and curling, and Dedue remembers with a clarity that’s long been lost to him the way his mother used to keep a hand in his hair as they sat together on the swing outside the house. His hair was longer, then, and she was always untying his braids and twisting them up again, since his sister had chopped most of hers off and he was the only one left to work with. He remembers being annoyed by that, ducking his head and shaking her off with mumbled assurances that he was nearly a man, now, just a few months from being declared a dominant with the other teens his age.

Ashe runs his fingers over the shaved side of Dedue’s head, trailing through the fuzz of white hair, and Dedue opens his eyes. Some of the paint has flaked off Ashe’s skin, but he can still see the line of a poem on his shoulder that would be mortifying if anyone actually knew the Duscur tongue.

Which... Sylvain and Dimitri are learning it, so perhaps he should smudge that line. He frowns at the thought of Dimitri, who he’s only ever known as a man at the call of his demons, being cured of them as he lies here with a former pirate in his arms. He doesn’t know if the man who will come down from the hill in two days will be the man he knows, or someone else entirely. He isn’t sure what he wants. If he can love a stranger the way he loves that broken young man who met him in the ruin of Duscur.

Ashe presses a thumb to the center of Dedue’s brow. “Hey,” he says. “He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?” Dedue asks.

“You always get that look when you’re thinking of the ca… Dimitri,” Ashe says. “I guess you’re the captain now. Captain Molinaro. That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“The navy will think I’ve defected,” Dedue reminds him. “They likely assume I’m on the run, trying to escape justice for sabotaging the ship.”

“Not the first time I’ve consorted with criminals,” Ashe says. “Even if you were one. Which you’re not.” He kisses Dedue’s shoulder. “I’m hungry.”

“Ah. This is what it is like, having a Fodlan submissive. All kisses when they need something.”

Ashe shoves at his arm, and Dedue smiles. He’s been smiling a bit more, lately, he realizes, as Ashe climbs onto him to kiss him properly. It’s a heady feeling, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it, yet.

They bathe in the creek first, which is just deep enough to wade into and rushes past them in a hurry to nowhere. There are a few others up this early, but Ashe and Dedue find a place further upstream where they can scrub off the paint and wash out their hair in relative silence. Little colorful birds flutter about in the trees, and the stones of the creek are worn so smooth that they nearly slip twice, grabbing each other for support.

“We don’t have long,” Dedue says, as they dry off in the sun on a flat rock beside the creek. Little flower blossoms tremble on the tree branch above them, pale white petals spiraling on the breeze. “There are repairs to make. A dragon to kill.”

“You say that like it’s easy,” Ashe says.

Dedue shrugs. “I don’t see the use of crying over impossible things. How would you do it? Kill a dragon?”

“Well.” Ashe uses Dedue’s arm as a pillow, sprawling out on the rock. “You know me and Yuri…” He glances at Dedue sidelong, and Dedue meets his gaze. He knows what it is to love more than once. “You could say the Abyss was a dragon. We took it out piece by piece. So maybe. Maybe a whole dragon is too much, but I bet a wing is manageable. Or a tail. Or a claw.”

“We could harpoon it,” Dedue says. “Lure it out, rip it apart.”

“It seems to like chains.” Ashe rolls on Dedue’s arm, placing a hand on his chest. “Good thing about chains is they’re easy to tangle, or grab hold of. We can turn them into a leash.”

“You like this,” Dedue says, and Ashe stares at him. “Solving problems.”

“Sort of,” Ashe says. “I know some subs, they like being useful, but I like… being more than that. Put me in a crowded room and have me steal something from each person there and put them in different pockets without being caught.” He sits up on his arm. “Or hit a moving target no one else can touch, or shoot an arrow true in a thunderstorm, or. Or pick a lock everyone thinks is unbreakable.”

“Impossible things,” Dedue says.

“Yes.” Ashe rolls on top of him, kisses him under the shade of the pale blossoms. 

“You’re like one of the heroes in the old stories, then,” Dedue says. “They’re always befriending lions or finding the jewel of the harvest god or escorting the sun to the nightlands. You’d call them knights, in Fodlan.”

“Our knights just slay dragons,” Ashe says, and goes silent as Dedue just looks at him. He laughs. “So you’re calling me a knight, Dedue? And what about you? All the best heroes in my favorite books were loyal and true. They weren’t afraid of impossible things, either. I can definitely see you carrying the sun, or befriending a lion.”

“Dimitri is something of a lion,” Dedue says. “Wounded. Powerful. Proud.”

“So there you go,” Ashe says. He kneels between Dedue’s legs, pressing a kiss to his thigh. “I’d like to see it, when this is over. Duscur. Will you take me there?”

“So you can steal a stone from the mountain like a folk hero?” Dedue asks, amused despite the wrenching fear of returning home, of passing through the empty ports to the fortified inland towns. To see what remains.

“Or maybe you can show me how it’s done,” Ashe says, and then he’s taking Dedue in his mouth, hands gliding up his thighs. Dedue lets his head fall back as Ashe moans around his cock, and there’s only the warmth of the sun, the touch of Ashe’s hands, his clever tongue.

When they return to camp, Ashe darts off to get his hands on harpoons and chains, while Dedue picks his way through the tents and searches for the sailors now under his command. Then he finds a suitable clearing ringed by trees, and hands Ashe a bow.

“Mark those four trees,” he says, and Ashe smiles faintly and plucks four arrows from the quiver, sticking them in the dirt at his side. He draws them one after another, his gaze focused and his back ramrod straight, and when he’s done, there are four arrows sprouting from the trees Dedue had pointed out. Dedue lays a hand on the back of Ashe’s neck, and Sylvain, lounging on a stump a few feet away, raises his brows.

“There’s our dragon,” Dedue says, gesturing to the trees. “Annette. You’ll work with each person holding a harpoon. Use your wind magic to help them strike true. Mercedes, you have offensive magic of your own?”

“Possibly,” Mercedes says, in her soft, sweet voice.

“Good. Try to knock them off course. Particularly Ingrid—She’s taking the tail, since she has a clear eye. Sylvain, I saw you using dark magic to pull a lifeboat, once. Use it as a chain on the end of your harpoon. By the end of the day,” he says, looking at each of them in turn, “all four of those trees should be pulled from the ground.”

“What,” Sylvain says, sounding more like Felix than he ever has. Ashe’s eyes are bright, and Mercedes is smiling a little too wide as Annette looks nervously from the harpoons to the trees.

“You heard me,” Dedue says, putting just a touch of command into his voice. “We’ll be dragging that monster out of the sky, next time.” He picks up a harpoon and hefts it in his hands. “Let’s get started.”

***  
“That’s not true,” Felix says, from where he’s sitting, naked and cross-legged on the bank of the springs. “I never told you that.” 

“You did, though,” says Dimitri, from where he’s floating on his back in the water, serene, as if the cold springs aren’t _fucking cold_ and making Claude shiver as he swims around, trying to stay warm. “You said, specifically, if I did kind deeds for you the fairies would bring me a sibling. So you made me brush your pony _and_ clean your room. In the morning, I still had no sibling.” 

“I never. You must have me confused with Glenn.” Felix puts his nose in the air and turns his face up. He’s blushing. 

Claude, treading water and trying to act like he’s not freezing -- smiles a bit. “Glenn?” 

“My brother,” Felix says. “For some reason, Dimitri wanted a sibling. I don’t know why. But that was him that told you that, Dima. Not me.” 

The nickname makes Claude smile. “My sister once told our youngest brother that if he left apples covered in honey and sugar out on the deck before bed, wyverns would leave him magical trinkets they stole from the sea. The only thing he ever found in the morning was an empty plate, because that’s her favorite snack.” 

Dimitri chuckles. “Did your brother ever figure it out?” 

“No,” Claude says, fondly. “Because my parents’ submissive found out and left a gorgeous necklace of priceless sea pearls on the plate, which of course my sister wanted but couldn’t have, and Zahir was so delighted that Mahreen just sulked about it for a few weeks and eventually told Zahir it only worked once anyway so he should stop. Then she tried it, but all she caught were flies and a ruined snack. Learned her lesson, I guess.” 

“I didn’t know you had siblings,” says Dimitri, who then flushes. “Which. I realize I don’t know very much about you at all, do I?” 

Claude shrugs. “Most people don’t. Yes, I have one sister and two brothers. All younger. And your brother, Felix, he’s...older? Younger?” 

“Dead,” says Felix. 

“Felix,” Dimitri chides, gently. “He was older. He was on the ship that went down, with my father.” 

Claude says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up unhappy memories.” 

“We’re Faerghans,” Felix says, standing up and stretching. “All of our childhood memories are unhappy. I’ve never heard of apples with honey and sugar. It sounds gross.” 

“They weren’t all unhappy,” Dimitri says, flipping to stand on his feet. He pushes his long, wet blond hair out of his face. “But I didn’t know House Riegan had so many, in the, ah. Younger generation.” 

Technically, only Claude and Mahreen are von Riegans, at least in any way the Fodlan nobility would consider. But he shrugs and says, “My being named the heir is only because I have the Crest of Riegan.” Mahreen doesn’t, and his brothers have their own special legacy, an older one, that has nothing to do with Fodlan. 

“You grew up in Derdriu, then?” Dimitri asks. He’s trying for casual, but it isn’t quite working. 

“No.” Claude swims over, then attaches himself to Dimitri. “This water is so cold, how can you just. Float there?” 

Dimitri laughs and pulls Claude close. “Faerghan summers are about this warm, and the water, too.”

“Gods,” Claude mutters. “And if you have a question, Dimitri, just ask it. You’re not very good at subtle.” 

“Ha,” Felix says, sunning himself on the bank. “He’s got you there.” 

Dimitri chuckles, and runs a warm hand down Claude’s back. “I’m curious as to where you grew up, that’s all.” 

“I grew up on a boat,” Claude says. “At sea.” He pulls back, easily wraps his legs around Dimitri’s trim waist, and leans in to kiss him. “You haven’t figured it out? My ship flies three flags. The Golden Deer, the Failnaught...and the White Wyvern.” 

“That’s the flagship of the Almyran fleet,” Dimitri says, blinking. 

“Well. Yeah. Mostly. My father’s still a little, you know.” Claude laughs. “King.” 

“You’re a -- your father is the king of Almyra?” Dimitri blinks his eye at him. 

“Yeah, what, don’t I look like a prince to you?” 

“You’re a prince of something, all right,” Felix says, pushing off the bank to join them in the water. He doesn’t even so much as shiver, the bastard. He’s as relaxed as Claude’s ever seen him, swimming like one of those half-human, half-seal creatures Claude’s mom used to talk about. 

_Old stories about old creatures from a cold sea, trying to stay warm when even the water wanted them to freeze away into nothing._ She’d told Mahreen that story once, but it’d made her cry. Tiana never told it again. 

Felix, though, he looks born to cold water and swims gracefully up to slide against Claude’s back, pressing him closer to Dimitri. “So I have two of you. Two princes. Both infuriating.” 

“How terrible to be you, Felix,” says Dimitri, his voice a low grumble. 

Felix’s mouth sucks on Claude’s neck -- he’s been affectionate today, and it’s because he’s under, and it was hard-won enough that Claude lets himself lean back a bit, trusts Dimitri to hold him while he puts his head on Felix’s shoulder, tilts his neck. 

“I feel more like a king than a prince, right now,” says Claude, shivering from something other than cold -- finally -- as he finds himself caught between the two of them. “A king of a very, ah. Nice country.” 

Felix snorts a laugh against his neck. “No one usually calls _me_ nice.” 

“They just don’t know how to handle you, sweet thing.” Claude laughs as Felix bites him for that, which he expected. 

Dimitri’s chuckle rumbles through his chest. “Tell me, I’ve always wondered - is it true, that the Almyran fleet _is_ Almyra?” 

“Yeah. It was an island, but it flooded and took the life of my grandfather’s submissive, who tried three times to murder my father when he was a boy.” Claude shakes his head. “There’s all sorts of stories about it, and a sea goddess, and they’re as fantastic as the ones my mom told me about Fodlan, and the selkies.” 

Behind him, Felix goes still. “My mom used to tell me about those. The selkies who shed their skin and went into the sea.” His voice goes soft. “She used to cry when she told me. When I was little, I asked her if _she_ was a selkie. She said she wished, because she wanted, sometimes, to shed her skin and swim somewhere. But she never did tell me where.” 

“Ah.” Claude can hear the ache in Felix’s voice. “My mom. When she talked about selkies, she always sounded sad, too. Must just be a sad story.” 

“All our stories are sad,” says Felix. 

“You’re not wrong.” Dimitri sighs. “And we’ve added more to the storybook, I would imagine. My madness, and a curse, and Felix --” 

“Stop,” Claude says, putting a bit of dominance in his voice. “We’ve had plenty of sad stories, let’s at least tell some dirty ones. Things are going to be intense, for a bit. Let’s at least enjoy a few hours where we can focus on something else.” 

So they do. Claude sprawls wet and naked on top of Felix on the bank, lazily rutting against him while Dimitri kneels behind him in the soft, wet grass and fucks him hard and perfect. Claude writhes, moans, talks as filthy as he can manage and, when Felix gasps, _can I come_ beneath him, enjoys every ounce of outrage Felix gives him when Claude tells him _no_. 

He doesn’t let Dimitri come, either, but when Claude’s satisfied -- and warm -- he wraps himself up in Dimitri’s furred cloak and watches Dimitri fuck Felix, until they’re both panting and begging him and it’s about as perfect a day as Claude’s had, in a while. 

Their cries are so loud when he lets them come, the birds are startle out of the trees. And it’s starting to get dark, so they head back to the cabin and Claude goes out to hunt, taking down a couple of rabbits and bringing them back with the sheer, smug satisfaction of a hunter providing for his family. Which he supposes they both are, aren’t they? Dimitri’s wearing his collar, and Felix’s token is warm against his chest. Maybe not a forever family, but a family for now. 

It’s warm enough with the fire in the cabin that both Dimitri and Felix can be naked, and Claude keeps that cloak of Dimitri’s wrapped around him even though it’s big enough that he and Felix both could use it as a blanket, probably. 

There’s very little of the haunted, wild-eyed man who Claude dragged from the water weeks ago. If his ghosts are still whispering to him, Dimitri isn’t listening; he laughs at Claude’s stories about growing up on a boat, and his smiles for Felix are so achingly sweet and full of affection that it makes Felix scowl and mutter and smile back, when he doesn’t think anyone can see. 

“The two of you, are you feeling better about this?” Claude asks, after supper, when they’re sprawled warm in front of a fire, the blankets from the bedroom piled up to make a space for them all to sleep, tangled up together. 

Well. Claude’s warm, anyway. He has a feeling Dimitri and Felix are probably _too_ warm, but they’re being good sports about it. Claude is the dominant, here. There have to be a few perks that go with that, right? 

“What do you think is going to happen?” Dimitri asks, when the fire is dying and he’s providing most of the warmth in the room. “When we go back.” 

“We’ll get on the ships and fight the thing,” says Felix, like this is obvious. “There’s nothing else we _can_ do.” 

How perfectly, delightfully _Felix_ of him. 

“I still think,” Dimitri says, softly. “That it might be easier for everyone, if you just let it have m-- mmph.” 

It’s Felix, not Claude, that reacts to that. He wriggles out of the blanket and Claude’s hold, slamming his hand on Dimitri’s mouth and climbing on top of him. Felix’s hair is unbound and finally dry from the fire, and it swings over his face as he glares down at Dimitri with an open expression of anger. “No. _No_. I didn’t go through all of this to get you back so that you could. Sacrifice yourself and leave me, again, you can’t just say that, stop being so, so --” 

Felix apparently doesn’t know what to say, because he just kisses Dimitri like he wishes he was punching him, instead. “Stop being so _you_.” 

“Well,” Dimitri says, with a deep, rumbling laugh. “I don’t think I can do that, Felix.” 

Claude puts his face in his hands. “I can’t handle the two of you.” 

“You better,” Felix says. “Because it’s clear neither one of us can handle each other.” 

Claude laughs outright, surprised to hear it said so bluntly though maybe he shouldn’t be. “I’m willing to do the work. But you’re both ridiculous. Although Felix is right, Dimitri.” He puts the weight of his command in his voice, and not just as the duke, but as the crown prince of Almyra. “You will not do anything of the sort. No one is getting tossed overboard or sacrificed to sea monsters.” 

He shifts, grabs Felix by the hair and Dimitri by the collar, and says, “And if you don’t trust Claude von Riegan, unabashed pirate who does lie a lot, you can trust Crown Prince Khalid of Almyra, whose mother clashed blades with a goddess and whose father made a second country out of boats, to freely travel the same seas the drowned the first one.” 

“And what has this Khalid done, to prove his worth?” Dimitri asks, smirking a bit, more playful than Claude is used to seeing. 

“Collared a king and earned his duke’s token by his own cunning? Saved a man from his ghosts? Reunited two lovers who --” 

“No,” Felix says, and leans in to kiss him. “Dimitri. He’s insufferable enough. Don’t make it worse.” 

Dimitri’s laughter is sharp and bright, like the fire in the hearth, like the sun no longer hidden by stormclouds. For the moment, Claude thinks as he kisses Felix and tumbles them back on top of Dimitri, everything is as it should be. 

He’s learned to take his victories where he can. 

It’s later, much later, when Dimitri is sound asleep on his back that Felix rolls over and puts a hand on Claude’s chest, takes up the medallion he gave him with his family’s sigil etched in the silver and rubs his fingers over it. His amber eyes are drowsy, warm as the embers dying in the hearth. “You haven’t asked me if I want this back.” 

“Because you’re not getting it. A year and a day, like your king, sweet thing.” 

Felix doesn’t smile, but there’s something of it in his gaze, the way his mouth isn’t the hard, rigid line Claude’s become accustomed to. “Dimitri isn’t...free, like I am.” 

Claude smiles up at him, strokes his fingers through Felix’s dark hair. “You think you’re free of him? I know love when I see it. And if I didn’t, it’s so obvious I’d have to be blind to miss it.” 

Felix rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t have it again, if not for you.” 

Claude’s smile stays firmly in place. “Gratitude is nice, but it’s never going to be a reason I want someone to wear my collar in truth.” 

“When you smile like that, you remind me of the man I saw in the bath at Abyss,” says Felix. He’s on his side next to Claude, propped up on one elbow, and he slowly, carefully, reaches out to brush his fingers over Claude’s mouth. “I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t much like him.” 

“I didn’t think you were,” says Claude. 

“I don’t. Make anything easy. Even for Dimitri, and I’ve loved him since we were young.” 

How easily he says it, now, when the storm has quieted and the ghosts gone back to their graves. 

“Also not much of a surprise,” says Claude, one arm behind his head. 

“I think maybe I like Khalid of Almyra, though.” 

“Maybe you have a thing for kings. Princes,” he corrects, since technically, neither he nor Dimitri would be free to chase sea monsters made of bones if they wore their respective crowns. 

“I have a thing for honesty. I don’t think Khalid of Almyra is less of a sneak or a liar than Claude von Riegan, Alliance duke and unrepentant pirate. But at least his eyes don’t look like sea glass when he smiles.” 

“That was very poetic,” Claude says, curling a hand around his neck. 

“My mom had a way with words,” says Felix. “I think you could have me, if you wanted me.” 

“I’ve had you three times today,” Claude points out, charmed. 

Felix doesn’t smile, just stares down at him with his sharp gaze, piercing as a blade. “You think you’re an enigma, but you’re not, not really. It’s easy to see what it is you want.” 

“Is that so?” Claude asks, a little dangerous, unsure he’s comfortable with the turn their conversation is taking. So much of who he is, what he wants to accomplish, happens in the shadows of what he lets people see. “And what’s that, hmm, sweet thing?” 

“I saw it on the boat, the night of the storm. The look on your face, when I kissed Dimitri in the rain. Even though I was so angry at him, ever time I thought his name or heard his voice. Do you know what it was?” 

“Relief that we weren’t going to drown?” 

Felix does smile, then. “No. Envy. Because even though I hated him, I was still loyal. That’s what you want. You offered Dimitri that collar for a year and a day, and I know he thinks it’s a gift, that you’re doing it to help him. But I know why you put a limit on it. You don’t trust anyone would want it for longer, do you.” 

It hits Claude like an arrow, like the piercing tip of a sword buried deep in his breast. “And they say Faerghans only know emotions if they come at the end of a blade.” 

“We do. But you’re as much a warrior as I am, Khalid of Almyra. And warriors don’t fall unless you strike them fast and true, where it counts.” He touches his fingers to Claude’s chest, briefly, over his heart. “I love him. I will always love him. But I won’t wear his collar, I can’t. If you want me to wear yours, you should know something. I won’t take it with an expiration date.” 

“All right,” says Claude, pulling him down to kiss him. He’s always known Dimitri can’t be his, not in the way he wants. Dimitri will rule as king, and so will Claude, and their lives will always be separated by politics and the responsibilities that come with their respective crowns. “But if you’re trying to show your loyalty by saying you’d leave Dimitri --” 

“I didn’t leave him when the Amyr turned their cannons on our ship, or when the sea took us. I didn’t leave him in the storm, when it came on your ship. I won’t let him throw himself to a monster in the deep, either. But if you think that means I can’t be yours, then you’re not as smart as you tell people you are.” 

“You’re sort of awful,” Claude says, resting Felix’s forehead against his. “Do you know that?” 

“Yeah,” says Felix. “Believe or not, I’ve heard it before.” 

***

Edelgard finds the straggling remains of the Areadbhar’s crew dragging themselves out of the woods at sunset. Most of them are shirtless—Mercedes strips entirely and walks directly into the ocean, where she floats on her back while the other girls rush after her—and the submissives are all a little dazed, as though they’re on the verge of going under. Ashe drops to his hands and knees when he reaches the beach, and lies there, groaning softly, while Sylvain plops down at his side.

“You’re a sterner taskmaster than I thought,” Edelgard says, catching up with Dedue. His broad back shines with sweat, and his hair is starting to curl a little, fine strands sticking firmly to his cheeks as they fly away from their ribbon.

“I wouldn’t push them so hard if it weren’t necessary,” Dedue says. He’s clearly as exhausted as the rest of his crew, but he remains upright, thumbs hooked in his belt. “One day soon, they’ll have to push themselves past this. There won’t be time to do anything else.”

Edelgard looks him over. She’s heard of Dimitri’s first mate, of course. She knows they found each other in the main port of Duscur, when the Faerghan Navy killed entire coastal towns under the pretext of “fighting piracy.” But it’s one thing to know the facts of the matter, and another to see it, that hollow look to the eyes as the mind travels back to where it started. Where the world changed.

“I assume you speak from experience,” she says.

“I assumed you’d understand well enough from your own,” Dedue says. Edelgard narrows her eyes, but Dedue is watching Ashe as he laughs with Sylvain. “You learn to see it in other people, after a while. Dimitri. You. Others.”

“That thief of yours,” Edelgard says, and Dedue finally looks at her, a sharp, fleeting glance. “And Dimitri, if he returns without his ghosts? What, then?”

Dedue looks out over the sunlit water. “I can’t say. I’ve only ever known him as he is. I don’t know if he’s a man who would have… recognized me, without the dead to hound him.”

Edelgard sits on the sand, and Dedue slowly lowers himself as well, still watching the water. “Even if they’re gone, the dead still have a way of speaking to us.”

“I’ve forgotten too much of them to know their voices,” Dedue says. “And I’ve killed my share, by now. Some of the dead hanging from that beast could have been sent there by my orders.”

They sit in silence for a moment, watching Mercedes pull Annette around by the arms as the sun sets over the sea. Annette laughs, and when Ingrid splashes them both, drops of water spray in the air like liquid fire. 

“Your people can stay on as my crew,” Edelgard says. It’s impulsive, she knows. She can see it in Dedue’s eyes, the hesitation, trying to gauge the meaning behind her words. “When this is done. There are still dangers, on the sea. Work that must be finished.”

“The nonsense with the crest of flames,” Dedue says, and Edelgard only just stops herself from hissing him into silence. “Yes, half the navy’s searching for it. You people can never leave the ocean alone.”

Edelgard surprises herself by laughing at that, and Dedue gives her a sidelong look. “Oh,” she says. “I’d keep you on my crew. You’re too sensible for Faerghus.”

Dedue almost smiles, and a shadow snakes over the sand as Ashe rises to his feet, pushing off his trousers while Sylvain moans quietly beneath him. He’s a wiry thing, the thief who befriends pirate lords and navy sailors, with the faint, pale scars of whip marks on his back and a jagged lump of tissue on the back of his neck. He looks over his shoulder at Dedue, and Dedue gives him the same painfully earnest look Dimitri have Edelgard last night, kneeling at her feet under the stars.

Edelgard smiles to herself as she thinks of Hilda, furious, cursing her as soon as she could hear Edelgard’s footsteps approaching through the trees. Edelgard doesn’t need devotion, but it’s nice to see it, all the same. Even in others.

“You should come,” Ashe says, as Dedue stands to join him. “Captain.”

“I. Can’t actually swim,” Edelgard admits. It isn’t that uncommon, among sailors. “I can enjoy the sea just fine from here.”

Ashe shrugs, seemingly unbothered to be standing naked before his captain and all the world, and reaches for Dedue. Dedue kisses his fingers, and when Ashe tips his head back to get a proper look at him, Edelgard catches the glint of a golden earring dangling in his silver hair.

Behind them, Ingrid screams.

Edelgard pushes herself upright, but Sylvain is already scrambling to his feet, and Ashe has taken off down the beach, kicking up sand. There’s a shadow in the water where Ingrid has disappeared, and Annette’s hands glow as a depression builds beneath her, water rippling around her like the sides of a great bowl. The shadow flickers, moving fast, and just as Ashe goes wading into the waves, quiet, good-natured Mercedes dives right for it.

Edelgard stops at the edge of the water. Foam swirls around her feet, and the tide tugs at her ankles, threatening to drag her into the depths. Ashe is waist-deep in the clear water, Sylvain staggering behind him, and Mercedes and Ingrid have yet to surface.

“That’s enough,” Annette says, and Ashe is pushed aside as the water rises around her in unnatural swells, drawing from the sea itself. She steps forward, and the water around the shadow pulls away, revealing a gasping, wild-eyed Mercedes holding onto Ingrid with both arms, while the yellowed, calcified bones of a skeleton claws at Ingrid’s legs. Ingrid kicks at it, and Edelgard can just see a sliver of a chain wrapped around its neck like a crude collar, the dark hollow of its eyes.

“Get them out of here,” Annette snarls, trembling with the effort of holding back the sea. Mercedes drags Ingrid to the shallows, and Dedue takes hold of Annette as she lets her magic drop, the ocean filling the space she made with a roar. 

They don’t say a word until they’re all on the beach again, Ingrid cursing softly as Mercedes tends to the bloody gashes in her leg, Annette pressing her hands to her temples. They stare out at the ocean, which grows dark as the sun melts into the graying sky, and Dedue looks back at Edelgard, his brows knitted tight.

“Someone’s displeased,” he says. “That man, the captain of the Wyvern. He must have done something, then.”

“Yes,” Edelgard says, watching as the shadows deepen in the waves. “I suppose so.”

***

In the cool depths of the sea, far below the reach of the setting sun, the beast stirs.

The beast was worshipped, once. Long ago, when the goddess’ island of Almyra was still new and their kings lost to the sea, the beast was one of many, and had a small and devoted following. Her supplicants didn’t make their offerings in temples or on long nights spent on strings of watchful ships, lanterns floating like stars over the water. Her people were isolated, lonely, cast-offs who gutted fish with a curse and tossed the entrails into the sea, hoping for a storm. 

Her last true disciple, before the prince who watched his people succumb to the depths, was a sailor on the Almyran fleet. She’d whispered to him in the night of sirens, those wretched creatures that drag men down into the kelp forests and hiss at her as she passes, and he’d tried to let a siren-born child drown off the side of the ship in her name. She’d bared her teeth as the child thrashed in the cold water, but they were taken from her, hauled up onto the ship by a human boy, and her disciple’s corpse was pushed into the sea for the sharks.

She still carries him, her last disciple, lashed headless to her belly by the chains that drift in her wake.

The beast is no more a goddess than a carrion bird is a king, but she remembers what it is to be worshipped, and she howls in the dark as her dead return to her, borne by their chains. She calls to the boy she found, years ago, his eye a bloody ruin and his family lost, but he does not answer. 

And somewhere above her, in the unnatural mists that remain even as the rain disappears into their blinding fog, the bones of her brethren tremble. She can feel them like an ache in the flesh she no longer has, and she opens her jagged maw to screech in a voice that rises through the darkness, through the roar of the sea, and dies at last at the feet of the ungrateful mortals who have taken her boy from her. She can almost see them, the woman with her moon-white hair, the Almyran with his useless crown, the man who has betrayed her boy, who turned him from her service and even now looks out over the water, searching for her. The man who wept in her storm, years ago.

She will have them, soon. They will adorn her bones, all of them, wrapped lovingly in their chains as she takes them into the darkness beneath the sea, where they belong.

**Author's Note:**

> We can't stop writing AUs for this fandom, so, enjoy another one :D 
> 
> Feel free to yammer at us on twitter! [Fae](https://twitter.com/faewrites) and [Dusty](https://twitter.com/dustofwarfare)!


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